“For Whom The Bell Tolls”

Shoba Sadler

Art of Creative Unity Award 2021 | Honorable Mention

Free lodging in exchange for cleaning once a week! Just what I needed to see on the bulletin board of Safeway supermarket . Campus lodging was quickly depleting my student funds. Cost of living in London was expensive. I could not resist applying for the job.

Over the phone, Yogan asked me to meet his wife, Kavitha, at their home in Colindale. If she was satisfied, I had the job. They already had three boarders - all Sri Lankan refugees.

When Kavitha began the interview in Tamil, I responded in English. It was obvious I understood her, but I spoke only in English. So she lapsed into English as well. It didn’t take much to convince Kavitha I was right for the job. The fact that I was of Indian origin, albeit Malaysian, and in my twenties, like her, was all the qualification needed.

I could tell she missed female companionship when I learned more about her than she did of me during the interview. She was a refugee too, but not her husband, Yogan.

Yogan arrived in London seven years ago as a student, worked hard and bought a petrol station. Eventually he became a permanent resident and married Kavitha a year ago. Raja, Ravi and Maniam were not related to them, but Yogan liked to help refugees, and took them on as boarders.

Kavitha told me she was getting a little tired of being the only woman in the house. I looked at her protruding tummy and politely nodded, failing to see any kinship between us. What could I, a Malaysian law student, have in common with a pregnant Sri Lankan refugee?

I took pride in my part-time job as a receptionist on Oxford Street. I had a full social life. I counted among my friends British-born colleagues and middle-class college-mates of various nationalities. I spoke fluent English and within six months of being a receptionist, I could even put on a convincing British accent. Thanks to my colleagues, I easily assembled an impressive winter wardrobe too. Even Malaysian students at college mistook me as local born.

Two days after my interview with Kavitha, I met up with Yogan at his petrol station. “Suji, I run a very tight schedule at work and home. I mainly need a young lady to keep my wife company. She misses home.”

“Don’t you need someone to cook and clean?”

I would rather do that, I thought to myself.

“The boys and I take turns to cook every evening. Ravi and Raja work at the cinema and Maniam works full-time here with me. You can carry on with your work-study schedule without interruption. Just choose one day a week that suits you to clean, and the rest of the time is yours.”

Wonderful! I accepted the job.

“Do you need any help moving? We have three cars between the four of us,” Yogan offered as I stood up to leave. And that was how it was right from the beginning. It was a household that pooled their resources and they were happy to share them with me.

Yogan ran the house at Colindale like the Godfather. He looked the part too, with his oily hair slicked back, sporting a diamond stud in one ear and always clean-shaven.

The first time the phone in the living room rang in the dead of night, the clock on my bedside table showed 2 am. Someone in the house answered it and I went back to sleep.

By the time I went downstairs for my breakfast cereal at 8 am, the kitchen was empty. Yogan had left a note on a food tray, asking if I could take breakfast upstairs to Kavitha. He had to leave early for work.

As I balanced the food tray with one hand, I knocked on Kavitha’'s door with the other.

“Come in,” her feeble voice called out to me.

“Yogan left me a note to bring you breakfast in bed. Just coffee and toast, he said. Would you like anything else?”

She reached for the tray, a handkerchief in her hand. No sooner had she put the tray aside, she blew her nose.

“Everything okay?” I asked, willing myself not to look at my watch. She started to cry.

“Can I make you an omelette?” Any excuse to leave the room.

“My brother is missing. He’s a Tamil Tiger.”

“Tamil Tiger...that’s the rebel force in Sri Lanka?”

She nodded, an invisible weight on her shoulders, pulling her arms down. I looked away. My bowl of cereal was getting soggy in the milk. I had forgotten it was sharing the food tray that lay beside Kavitha because it could not rest on her enlarged abdomen.

“I was about to have breakfast too.” I reached for my bowl of cereal and began eating. “So why is your brother fighting with the Tamil Tigers?”

Kavitha told me this rebel force called the Tamil Tigers had been created to fight the oppressive Sinhalese regime that was in power in Sri Lanka. Her family would not take sides, but the Sinhalese army kept raiding her village to look for rebels and burnt down their homes and crops. There was little choice for some of the men and women but to join the Tigers to protect their villages and livelihood.

She hadn’t touched anything on the food tray by the time I finished my cereal. I had to go. She understood and gave me a grateful smile.

A week later another call disturbed the serenity of the night. When I enquired about the phone call while everyone was in the kitchen for breakfast, Yogan took me aside to say Kavitha’s brother had been located, alive and well. No one else mentioned it. Yet the atmosphere was light and jovial amongst the bustle in the kitchen, getting ready for work. Kavitha prepared breakfast for everyone, almost capricious in her light-heartedness. Like everyone else, I held back the congratulations. I too sensed the unspoken words hanging in the air, “For how long?”

Two weeks later, when the phone rang in the dead of night, I wondered for whom it might be. Downstairs at breakfast, the only sign of the phone call was a sullen and red-eyed Maniam.

“Suji, could you please buy these groceries at Safeway once you finish work today?” Yogan handed me a list. “Raja should be driving home then. He can pick you up.”

Raja nodded. The boys were busy grabbing coats as they shuffled to the door.

“Not you, Maniam,” Yogan asserted as they were about to file out. “You won’t go in to work today. Have a good day, boys.”

I caught the train to college in the morning and worked at a business centre on Oxford Street in the afternoon. When Raja finished work at the cinema, he met me at Safeway and helped carry the groceries to the car.

“So what’s up with Maniam?” I asked Raja in the car, on the way home.

“The army invaded his village looking for rebel fighters and took his brother away,” Raja replied.

“Why didn’t he come to London too?”

“Not everyone gets the opportunity.”

I braced myself for the aroma of Indian cooking to assault my senses when we walked into the house. I could not put the groceries down fast enough to escape the blare of the Tamil movie in the living room. I glanced at the dhal curry in Kavitha’s hand as she invited me to dinner with a sweet smile. I politely declined and fled.

I remembered asking Yogan once, “Must you people eat dhal every

day?” He only chuckled.

In the evenings he was a different Yogan than the calculating, stern Godfather of the house and big boss of the petrol station. He watched Tamil movies with Kavitha and the boys, got boisterous over fight scenes and emotional over tear-jerkers.

More dead-of-night phone calls would follow for the duration of my stay. More bad news. Once, after such a call, I heard Yogan’s newborn son crying softly outside my door. I was the only one who had a bedroom downstairs.

“What are you doing?” I asked upon finding Yogan cradling his son in the living room at 2 am.

“My mother’s dead. Heart-attack. She never got to see my son.”

“I’m sorry.” I sounded awkward and insincere.

“Go back to sleep.”

The next deadly phone call came one last time before I moved out to live with college friends. Total silence always accompanied these calls. No crying. No sound of movement. I envisioned everyone holding their breath in bed, lying still and hoping it was not for them. Everyone, except me.

Ironically, this time, it was for me.

The following weekend I was moving house. Ravi, Raja and Maniam carried my boxes to two cars and when I was ready to leave, I saw my housemates, standing in a line at the front door. Kavitha handed me an envelope. It was a plane ticket to Malaysia to attend my father’s funeral.

“I can’t take this.” I gave the envelope back to her and she passed it down the line till it fell into Yogan’s hand. “Whose stupid idea was this?”

Yogan cleared his throat. “Suji, the boys and I pooled our money to buy the ticket. They insisted they wanted to contribute.”

“Well, you’ll just need to get a refund. I’ve accepted I can’t afford to go back now, with my mum’s financial situation. Why can’t you accept it too?”

“Because we can’t say goodbye to our loved ones, but you can.” Yogan’s voice sounded strained.

I looked up and watched in tears as the envelope passed hands one by one down the line of my housemates, to reach my hand.