Free Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai

nothing.”
    “What do you mean nothing?” his father said to him. “It was downright insulting.”
    “My mother gets –” Radha Aunty started to say, but Anil’s father interrupted her.
    “Coming here and accusing my son of this and that and the other. As if my son was desperate for a bride or something.”
    Anil threw him a warning look which he ignored. “We are from a good family as well. High-country Sinhalese, we are. Last thing we also want is for our son to marry some non-Sinhalese.”
    “I understand,” Radha Aunty said and looked at her hands.
    “No, you don’t understand,” he said, and wagged his finger at her. “It was very high-handed of your mother to come here and do that.”
    “Thatha,” Anil said firmly, “this is not your concern.”
    “Oh yes it is,” he replied. “Our family name has been insulted. I shall not take this lying down.”
    Anil turned in his chair and called down the hall for his mother. I noticed that someone was standing behind the curtained doorway at the end of the hall.
    “Menik!” Anil’s mother called out sharply from behind it. “Come here!”
    Anil’s father became silent.
    “Menik! Come here. Soon!”
    Anil’s father rose reluctantly from his chair. Before he left us, he raised his finger and said, “Be careful. We Sinhalese are losing patience with you Tamils and your arrogance.”
    Anil leaned back in his chair and groaned in mortification. His father walked down the hall. I felt relieved to see him go, for I was beginning to feel frightened of him.
    Anil looked at Radha Aunty and said, “I’m so sorry.”
    Radha Aunty smiled bravely. “It’s all right.”
    “Can I get you anything to drink?”
    She shook her head and stood up. “Have to get back. I just came to apologize, that’s all.”
    We walked down the driveway in silence. When we were at the gate, Anil said, “I didn’t know that you were engaged.”
    “I’m not,” Radha Aunty replied.
    “Your mother said …”
    “She lied.”
    “Oh,” he said, and then was silent.
    Radha Aunty lifted the latch.
    “But there is someone?”
    “Yes.”
    Radha Aunty pushed open the gate and we went out.
    “And you will marry him?”
    Radha Aunty paused and then put the latch back into place. “Yes. I think I might.”
    As we went towards the beach again, I thought of all that had happened at Anil’s house. Now I was beginning to understand why Ammachi had been so angry. Part of her anger was because Anil was Sinhalese, but another part, I now saw, had to do with her fear that Anil and Radha Aunty were in love with each other. I felt she was wrong. Anil and Radha Aunty didn’t act like people in love. They were more like friends. I found myself thinking of Anil. He didn’t fit my idea of what a lover looked like. He was fairly tall and, though not thin, his body was angular and a little awkward. With his large eyes, full lips,and thick, curly hair, which hung almost to his shoulders, he looked like someone too young to be a lover. Also, he was not serious enough.
    At the next rehearsal, when we came in through the gates of St. Theresa’s, Anil was leaning against the wall of a building as if waiting for someone. We greeted him, and from the way Radha Aunty and Anil smiled at each other, I could tell they were thinking about that day we had gone to his house.
    “Did you get into trouble for seeing me?” Anil asked.
    Radha Aunty shook her head. “My mother doesn’t have any spies on your road.”
    We walked together towards the rehearsal hall.
    “Why does she hate the Sinhalese so much?” Anil asked.
    “Her father was killed in the ’fifty-eight riots.”
    He was silent for a moment. “And you? Are you anti-Sinhalese?”
    “No.”
    “Would you allow your child to marry a Sinhalese?”
    “Yes, definitely.”
    “And yourself?”
    “What?”
    “Would you marry a Sinhalese?”
    Radha Aunty glanced quickly at him and then looked away. “Probably