On Sal Mal Lane Read Online Free Page A

upholstery and lace, and there wasn’t a bit of either in evidence.
    Finally Mrs. Silva spoke, setting her conundrums aside to be revisited later in the company of her husband, who could always figure these things out. “I thought you and the children might like some tea. Must not have got your cooker and everything set up yet, no?”
    Mrs. Herath reached behind her for the fall of her sari and tucked it into the pleats at her waist before sitting in the chair next to her neighbor. “Yes, my woman, Kamala, is trying to get it started but something is not working,” she said. “The wick is not picking up the kerosene. You know how it is with new things, they take time to settle down.”
    “Where did you get it?” Mrs. Silva asked, absently, her eye on a large brass bowl that seemed far too heavy to have been bought in the city. If it was as old as it appeared, then the Heraths were of a higher pedigree than she had imagined from their erratic song-and-dance behavior.
    “Oh, from Sinappa Stores, just up the road,” Mrs. Herath said.
    Mrs. Silva forgot her contemplation of the brass bowl. “Sinappa Stores? My goodness, Savi, you should know better than to buy from those Tamil places. They’re thieves, every one of them!” And Mrs. Silva clapped the back of her palm to her forehead, all the fingers parted, so great was her dismay, but glad that she had made this visit right away while there was still time to get Mrs. Herath on track.
    Mrs. Herath looked mildly amused. “Really? I’ve never had that experience, quite the contrary, I have to say. I used to do all my appliance shopping in the Tamil-owned shops in Pettah and never had a problem. I was quite happy when we decided to move here because we would be so close to Wellawatte and I wouldn’t have to go all the way to Pettah to shop anymore, even for fabric and saris.”
    Mrs. Silva breathed out sharply through her nose in disgust, a reptilian hiss that made the four children, listening from inside, sit up straighter in their chairs. “All the same, Savi, they are all the same,” she said, bending forward for emphasis and dragging out that second all for so long that there was no possibility of there being even one Tamil shop keeper who might merit being placed outside its reach. “Pettah, Wellawatte, all full of thieves, I tell you. We should get together and boycott, us Sinhalese people. Go exclusively to the Sinhalese shops . . .”
    Mrs. Herath listened to Mrs. Silva go on for a while longer about the villainy of the Tamil shop keepers, every single one of them, from those who sold fabric to those who sold electronics to those who sold jewelry and dry goods. She listened to Mrs. Silva mention, as if this were some particular depravity of the Tamil people, that they always go for the non perishable businesses, have you noticed? She didn’t know what to say in response, never having considered that anyone in her acquaintance would subscribe to such opinions as these, and even when she did try to counter Mrs. Silva’s arguments about the non perishable items, saying, But what about the betel sellers and the fortune tellers and the garland makers? she was firmly re butted by Mrs. Silva. But when Mrs. Silva moved on from the Tamils to the Muslims and Burghers, she stopped her by calling out to her children in an unnaturally loud and cheerful voice.
    “Children! Come and see, Aunty Rani has brought tea and biscuits for you. Go wake your father. Tell him there’s tea.”
    None of the children went to check on their father, being far more curious about their guest and all the things they had listened to her say, from inside their front door, in her deep and authoritative voice. Furthermore, though they murmured their thanks and waited politely as their mother conversed with Mrs. Silva, who sat so stiffly in a perfectly stitched creamy yellow lungi and blouse, her knees together, her back straight, they were sure, one and all, that the visit from Aunty Rani did