Wanderers in Eternity – Chapter 2 (Page 2)
Just as he and Suneetha wished for and just as Aggie Nona had predicted, Lionel’s mother, Mrs. Mallika Henagama returned home carrying a baby boy.
Lionel along with his sister looked into the bundle that mother held close to her bosom.
“A red coloured baby brother,” Suneetha said.
When mother and father laughed, Lionel laughed along.
The little brother had his eyes closed and his fists clenched.
“What is brother’s name?” Lionel inquired.
“Ajith Kusumsiri,” father replied proudly.
“Ajith Kumusee,” sister tried to repeat.
“A beautiful name.”
How different was his own name, ten year old Lionel thought. He got that name because father’s younger brother had the same name. Before Lionel was born that brother had died from an automobile accident. Lionel received that name as a remembrance of that dead uncle. Wasn’t it because of his father’s selfish will and stubbornness that Lionel was not named like any other boy of those days with a name such as Sunil, Sarath, Vasantha, Mahinda or Bandula? Once in a while Lionel thought that he would change his name one fine day.
“Younger brother’s name is beautiful. Mother, why didn’t you give me a Sinhala name as well?” one day Lionel inquired.
“You know son, you were given your uncle’s name.”
“But he died. I will also die young like him.”
“Oh, son don’t say things like that.”
“I’d like some other name.”
“What is the name that you’d like?”
“A name like Sisira or Athula.”
“We will ask father about it.”
Though mother said so, she soon forgot her promise. Lionel also forgot this when he buried his head in his school books. Lionel was attending Nalanda College in Nugegoda. From next year, Suneetha would also attend a nursery school in Nugegoda.
Lionel was very bright at school. He never went below third in class. When someone inquired him what he was going to be when he grew up, he replied that he was giong to be a doctor. Sometimes he would pick up little insects from the garden and toss and turn them as if to get a preliminary education from their behavior. Seeing his actions Mallika was happy. She dreamt of her son attending a big university one day and becoming an important man. Her only wish was to give a good education to her children. But how often do wishes come true?
A month after his birth, Ajith Kusumsiri had a rash all over his body. There were red blisters everywhere. The medicines given by the doctor only worsened the condition. Day and night baby cried in pain.
“Oh, what has happened?” Mallika said in tears.
Ajith drank very little milk. He was shrinking rapidly. From the red blisters, pus was oozing.
“I wonder whether any poisonous creature bit him?” Victor wondered. “Sidney’s son had a rash like that from a centipede bite.”
“So, didn’t the doctor give medicine to kill any poison? I have rubbed the calamine lotion on his body as well.”
“Calamine is only good for the surface of the skin. The poison is inside the body.” Victor argued.
“This, sir, could be a matter of an evil eye,” Aggie Nona put in her two cents worth. “You have to consider such things as well. It is best if you put a talisman around his neck to protect him from the Balagiri devil’s curse. Or else you should bring an exorcist to take the evil curse away by cutting some limes over the baby’s head.”
The Henagama couple looked at each other. They felt that there was some truth to what Aggie Nona said. The very next day with the recommendation from one of Victor’s friends an exorcist came all the way from Galle to Nugegoda. When this man named Jineris was preparing a plate fruits and flowerse, Lionel looked on eagerly. But he did not like all the attention his brother was getting during this ceremony. He wished for his brother suffered from the rash because of his own evil thoughts.
Everyone’s attention was on Ajith. Everybody talked about him. Everyone sympathized the poor baby and attended to him. What sort of weird Karma was this?
The exorcist said his incantations over a thread, cut some limes over the baby’s head, rubbed some oil on his tiny body and did a special ceremony to bless the house as well before he returned to Galle. It appeared as if the baby was feeling a little better. But the blisters were still there. Ajith cried all night. From that exhaustion he slept all day. Mallika was kept awake all night. The little brother’s crying woke up Lionel several times as well.
“What a bother,” said he and covered his head with the pillow as if not to hear the baby’s crying. But until he fell asleep he kept hearing this annoyance.
The following week an herbal doctor came from Kaluthara. Famous for such class, the man was known as the Dadha Vedamahattaya (Blister Doctor).
He looked at the patient and determined that some poison had entered the baby’s body while he was still in his mother’s womb. This he said was caused by some allergic food eaten by the pregnant mother and now the poison was coming out of the baby’s body.
At this time, Mallika remembered something. While she was pregnant with Ajith she had a great desire to eat Wadey. (A chili donut). She did not know why she had such a craving. The Blister Doctor told them that some mothers who were pregnant with babies who would later become criminals had a craving to drink blood while being pregnant. Mallika had no idea why she had the urge to eat the Wadey. She now wondered whether this chili food could have poisoned her blood.