Wanderers in Eternity – Chapter 3 (Page 4)
While Lionel went to bring dinner, Anula took a shower. She felt an unusual awakening within her from the renewed love of Lionel as well as from the cool water. Everything will be all right from now on, she thought.
By the time Lionel returned with two packets of rice, she was waiting with the bedside lamp lit. The two of them ate the rice and curry while sitting at the small study table. They fed each other with their fingers. There was something beautiful about this act. It awakened them. Every time his fingers touched her lips, she felt this awakening.
After dinner, Lionel took a shower. When he came out perfumed by the scented soap, Anula was sitting on the bed with her hair undone.
After this everything happened very quickly. Lionel behaved in some animated rush, In his heart was the last glimmer of a dying lamp. Anula also gave in to all his whims and desires. The actions that started not to hurt her in any manner, ended with her losing her virginity.
A soft drizzle started to fall. Tears gathered in Anula’s eyes. These tears held all her happiness, sorrow, regret, pain and desires. Lionel who was above her, turned out the light. Only the faint glow from the outside was now left in the room.
Later Anula thought how crazily Lionel acted that night. Did he act that way to release all the anger and pain that was stored in his heart all these years? Whatever reason it was, she felt that she was giving him comfort and solace by allowing him to do whatever he wanted to do. She thought that he was being liberated by her sacrifices.
The drizzle continued on. While his body was covering with a fine sweat, Lionel let out a long sigh and laid down next to Anula. Even though he fell asleep very soon, she stayed awake deep in her thoughts. Why did she give in to him like that? What strong emotions were desire and lust? Though one controlled the mind, when the senses of the body awakened, it was not an easy task to control them. Though she felt a certain amount of discomfort in her groin, there was a certain enjoyment in that pain as well.
How temporary is the comfort one gets by scratching a wound?
Anula was so sure of Lionel not leaving her. But she thought about the situations she would have to face in the near future. As a woman, she did not have the luxury of falling asleep like Lionel.
Eventually by the time she did get some sleep it was past mid night. The rain fell on.
By the time she awoke next morning, Lionel was gone. Near her pillow was a note from him along with a white plumeria flower he had plucked from the garden.
“My darling Anu, I am leaving without waking you up. I hope that you received the same liberation that I received. We will meet again as soon as I return. Yours forever and unchanging,
Your ever loving,
Lionel
This scented flower is a reminder of our love.
Tears welled in Anula’s eyes not just from physical pain. A mixed myriad of emotions and thoughts were born within her heart. Love, affection, pain, sacrifice, separation, the passion that overflowed last night, all this bubbled within her and came out of her eyes as tears.
After this day, Anula never saw Lionel again. From the fighting that erupted all over the country by the restless actions of the revolutionaries, on the fifth of April, many many people lost their lives. Not only the revolutionaries, but many who were in the army and the police and many innocent victims lost their lives that day.
Lionel died while he was under custody. A long time later Anula found out that he was taken to an army camp where he was either brutally tortured and murdered or was shot. All the news received was unclear and buried in a quagmire.
Anula who waited for Lionel’s return could almost sense his fate. Through friends and informants she received bits and pieces of news which his parents also received. Since the campus was closed for a long period of time, she went back to Nadun Oya like a snail crawling back into its shell. She no longer had the desire to go to a university and get a higher education.
She told her mother that several of her friends had been taken into custody as revolutionaries and that she herself had been questioned by the police and then sent home. There was some truth to what she said. Renuka, the girl who shared the room with Anula, got killed in Kataragama. Only later did Anula find out that her roommate was also a revolutionary. How cunningly did Renuka and Lionel both hide their true identities? Why didn’t Lionel reveal to her his true self? Did he really love her? Or did he love only his liberation struggle? When he acted with such a passion that last night with her, didn’t he know everything about the disaster that was to happen later? When he left that night after behaving with such emotions, didn’t he leave a memento with her?
Very soon afterwards, Anula could feel the change and churning within her womb. How long could she keep this a secret from her dear mother? As the fetus gradually grew it would be impossible to hide it from anyone.
Often when her poor mother saw Anula in deep reverie, she thought that her daughter was feeling sad about her disrupted education. How little even a mother who gives birth to a child would know about its offspring?
After this, Anula went back to working in the rice fields. It was at a harvest time that she became friendly with Siripala. He was a rustic young man from the Yan Oya Valley. Anula found his dark muscular body and the appealing smile that exposed a pair of perfectly white teeth very attractive.
Though Anula still thought about Lionel, her heart was gradually being pulled towards Siripala. Before the world around could really notice her pregnancy, she became involved with him because of true loving feelings.
Very soon, she seduced him. Siripala felt a pride that a girl who had attended a university was coming on to him. He also bore loving feelings towards her.
After their first meeting they saw each other quite often. Anula’s mother was relieved that her daughter was smiling once again.
Many times Anula heard her mother comment “What a good man Siripala was.”