Free Swimming in the Monsoon Sea by Shyam Selvadurai

in the architect’s aviary. It was Lucien Lindamulagé who had found themynah, when they had been working on a project outstation, and brought it as a gift.
    Amrith had been planning to visit Lucien Lindamulagé and consult him on Kuveni’s silence when, one evening, he came home from a solitary bicycle ride by the sea to find the old man seated in a Planter’s chair in the courtyard, having tea with Aunty Bundle.
    Lucien Lindamulagé waved the moment he saw Amrith.
“Ah
, my dear, how marvelously healthy and flushed you look,” he cried archly. “No doubt you’ve been taking in the bracing air of the ocean.”
    He was a little gray-haired gnome of a man, with large ears and nose, and thick glasses. He always applied white powder to his face, and this gave his dark complexion a grayish sheen. He was seated in a manner not at all befitting his age. His feet were up on the chair, tucked under his white sarong, and his knees were drawn to his chest.
    There was something scandalous about Lucien Lindamulagé that Amrith did not understand. It had to do with his constant round of young male secretaries. Amrith had once overheard Uncle Lucky warning his wife that Lucien Lindamulagé should leave his secretaries at home when they went on business outstation; that what the old man did was illegal and he could end up getting arrested. Aunty Bundle had been furious at her husband for believing such rumors. Yet, from the heat of her anger, Amrith felt she knew the rumors were true and was deeply saddened and troubled by whatever it was her friend did.
    As Amrith parked his bicycle and went across the courtyard, Lucien Lindamulagé watched his approach over the edge of his glasses, a merry twinkle in his eyes. When Amrith was by him, the architect reached up and pulled on his earlobe affectionately. “Growing taller and taller every month,
nah.”
    Amrith could not help grinning. Despite Lucien Lindamulagé’s odd maanner and the scandal surrounding him, he really liked the old architect. Unlike with most men, Amrith felt that he could simply be himself around Lucien Lindamulagé.
    “Now tell me,” the old man said, squeezing Amrith’s arm, “how are the birds? Has the mynah talked yet?”
    Amrith shook his head.
    The architect frowned. “How very odd, my dear. What techniques have you been using?”
    Amrith told him all the things he had tried, hoping the architect would be able to suggest something else, but Lucien Lindamulagé shook his head. He put his feet on the ground and stood up.
“Hmm
, let us take a look.” He held on to Amrith’s arm, for he did not have his walking stick with him, and they began to make their way across the courtyard.
    Once they were in the aviary, Lucien Lindamulagé tried to get the mynah to talk, but nothing he did worked either. He stared at the bird, puzzled for a long time, then his face lit up.
“Ah!
Perhaps it is loneliness that makes our Kuveni mute. She needs a mate.” He nodded. “Yes-yes. I’m sure that is the solution.”
    He turned to Amrith. “We are going outstation in a few days and I will keep my eye out for a male mynah. Village children are adept at catching these birds and will readily give them up for a few rupees.”
    Amrith looked at Kuveni, who was regarding them as usual with her head to one side, and he hoped that Lucien Lindamulagé’s solution might turn out to be correct.
    When they came down to the courtyard, Lucien Lindamulagé’s secretary was waiting for him — a young man in his midtwenties with an olive skin, glossy black hair, and full lips. As Amrith looked at him, he remembered how he had once heard boys in his school mention Lucien Lindamulagé’s secretaries and refer to the old man as a “ponnaya” — a word whose precise meaning Amrith did not understand, though he knew it disparaged the masculinity of another man, reducing him to the level of a woman.

    The hole in the living room roof had still not been fixed and, one evening, the family