Overland - excerpt from novel in progress...

OVERLAND

Our journey from London to Ceylon

<a work in progress...>

By Samanthi Arseculeratne Martinez

    

    The story of how I came to be begins in the island nation of Ceylon two years before I was born. After a year of childless marriage, my father went to see a fortune-teller. At first he didn’t tell my mother, knowing how she scoffed at such things. He thought that maybe he could take a photo of her or a piece of her clothing, but the wrinkled, black Tamil woman who met my father at the gate said to come back with the poonchi nona, little lady, and then she would lay out their fortune as she saw it. They arrived late in the afternoon the following day, at a modest house set within a walled compound at the end of a small lane off Ward Place near the Eye Hospital in Colombo. There was a mango tree heavy with fruit in the dusty front yard, which was a very good sign. But there was also a mangy road dog, a parra balla, that had squeezed its rounded rib cage through the rusted iron gate and now lay beneath the mango tree licking himself: not a very good sign.

    My father Rex drummed his fingers nervously on the driver’s side mirror, nonchalantly flicked the ash from a 555 Brand cigarette and waited for someone to approach the gate and let them in. When my mother saw the limewashed concrete-block house and the silver haired man in a faded striped sarong stepping out on the shaded verandah, she very nearly stepped back into the car and demanded to be taken home. But the old man advanced, efficiently steered them both into the dim-lit parlor near the front of the house and drew a dingy chintz curtain across the doorway before disappearing.  The acrid smell of roasted curry powder hung in the air and behind the curtain, a pair of flat feet slap-slapped against the polished concrete floor.

    By the time the old woman appeared, Rani, my mother, had already said fifteen Hail Marys and tossed a few impatient looks towards my father. She had once put a lot of stock in astrologers, fortune telling and auspicious signs. She’d grown up with traditions of selecting the perfect time to launch business endeavors or choose a mate based on the location and alignment of the stars, but even these thousand-year-old methods could be refuted by plain science and sheer will. She preferred to put her faith in God, and when He withheld answers, in logic.

    “You will never have a child, mahathāya, sir, while your feet touch this island,” the old woman told Rex. She had studied the creases of their palms and consulted astrological charts based on the date and time of their births. The woman had a good reputation in Colombo for accuracy and prophecy. That she charged only a small grease of the palm further reinforced the idea to Rex that she was a true seer not just a money maker.

    Sri Lanka, called Ceylon in those days, is a land of July monsoons that dump torrents of rain, followed by the humid aftermath of children floating leaf boats down gutters. Frogs spring back to life out of mud-bottomed ponds after these downpours. Hardly anyone goes hungry in Ceylon, even the very poor, because papayas the size of a man’s head hang heavy from trees on the roadside and fish swim directly into nets along the loop of coastline. Every part of every tree and flower is useful: spices curl from cinnamon tree bark, piquant black pepper seeds burst forth from bushes, and medicinal serpentine root snakes through luxuriant dark soil.

    Rex made hasty arrangements and booked tickets to journey by airplane to London. His mother Louisa would be entrusted, until their return, with their three-year-old black Labrador retriever, Fifi. Rex’s younger brother Festus and Peter, a family friend, would accompany them because it was good to have your people nearby in a strange land. 

    A year and a half after they arrived in London, I was brought into the world in the pink hands of a British doctor, thousands of miles from the tropical island sun that had already imprinted my skin brown. My parents named me Samanthi Bernadette. Samanthi is a Sinhala name meaning jasmine flower, but in Tamil, Samanthi means marigold. A few months after arriving in London, my mother and father had taken a trip, a pilgrimage really, to visit the sacred grotto at Lourdes to light a hundred tapers of delicately scented white candles and kneel in prayer before the beautiful blue-robed Blessed Virgin. My mother made a vow that if they could have a girl child, they would name her Bernadette. So what the fortune-teller predicted two years before in the eternal summer of the tropics, the Virgin Mary delivered in the sweet pea spring of Surrey, England in 1964.

    Their first winter in London had been the coldest in a hundred years and Rex and Rani didn’t want to brave another winter, now that they had a baby to consider. They dreaded the idea of bundling up, in a few short months, against icy winds and the heavy damp that lay on London like a wet wool blanket. They longed for gusts of warm tropical night air against bare skin, and the taste of the mellow syrup dripping like wet sunshine from mangoes. Even Festus and Peter, then young men readying for families of their own, were keen to get home. And rather than fly back, they decided to return by driving over land.

    No one remembers exactly how the idea began – it could have been after a few glasses from the jug of sweet port wine on a Friday evening, as lights began to flicker on in row houses all along St. Alban’s Road. They decided against returning by airplane, along the steady route that brought them, through Switzerland, to Pakistan, across India to tiny municipal Ratmalana Airport in Colombo. That straightforward journey afforded neither a trace of adventure nor the intricacies of a land passage. Maybe it is the wild hair of their time: that their later age and wisdom will not admit to past imprudence and spontaneity.

    The notion of overland travel was fueled by the he-man bravado of two young bachelors, paved by the sensibility of Rex the planner and schemer, tempered by Rani’s ability to cook a sweetmeat out of a sow’s ear, and finally made reckless by a bouncing baby with a good disposition. If anyone could be blamed for a fool’s adventure, then the easiest person to blame would have been me. I was an easy baby, they said, hardly ever cried, never got colicky or fussy. And if I did, a teaspoon of Woodward’s Gripe Water, with extracts of fennel and dill oil (and minute amounts of alcohol) eased the gripe.

    Rex requested detailed maps from the London branch of the Automobile Association of America for the countries they would travel through and drew out the most reasonable route. He wanted to keep their options open if they decided on a short side trip, or had to make a detour. This wouldn’t be much different from family pilgrimages to the Our Lady of Madhu Church in north western Ceylon, he thought. The entire family traveled there each August to camp, attend mass, cook elk meat curry outdoors in giant pots, and drink quarts of the local toddy. Rex always drove his car, packed with people, gear and food.

    Driving in Ceylon required every vehicle to have two important attributes: brakes and horn. To drive without them was suicidal in a country with hairpin turns along steep hilly passes and little regard for staying on only one side of the road. Many locations could not be found on maps, but were named for not much more than natural features – Navahandhi, nine curves along a road, Ratnapura, place where gems are found, or Gal Oya, river of rocks. Bullock carts and stray dogs crossed without warning and pedestrians were dealt with much like potholes: they won’t move so you have to drive around them. By contrast, traveling across Europe was straightforward with junctions marked by signs and tidy hamlets lining the roadways. Crossing Eastern Europe and the Middle East would present its challenges but in the middle of the 20^th century, there were only small troubles there and travelers could still expect to be treated with reverence.

    Rex planned to take his newly acquired over-and-under shotgun for protection, though they would hide it, wrapped in a gunny bag. He wasn’t a bad shot, but it was Festus who could lean from the window of a moving car in the jungles near Puttalam, take aim and bring down an elk as if it were dropping to sleep. With Festus and Peter, they’d have three drivers. Rani would have enough to do with caring for her baby and she didn’t drive anyway.

    “I couldn’t even drive them crazy,” my mother would tell me years later, “because I was busy taking care of you.”

    For the entire summer leading up to their planned early-October departure, details became obsession and each had their own responsibilities and departments. The most crucial aspect of the journey would be their vehicle. Rex was so fond of cars that he practically named them (he had left a cream-colored Peugeot 403 in the care of his eldest brother, but had bought a scarlet four-door Vauxhall Victor in London which would be sent to Ceylon by ship) yet he was helpless once the bonnet was raised. He could stare at a motor and never appreciate the engine displacement or foot-pounds of torque, which drove Festus mad. When Festus raised the lid on a writhing, snorting beast of umpteen-horsepower he would nearly salivate at the magnificence and primacy of the internal combustion engine. Rex put him in charge of choosing their transport, gave him about £35 and dispatched him to buy a suitable used van they could retrofit for the thousands of miles and weeks of camping ahead of them.

    But Rex was furious when Festus returned from Tewksbury Auto Salvage with two junkyard heaps, towed back home to St. Alban’s Road.

    “Aiyo,” Rex clicked his tongue in a discounting tone. “I gave you enough money to buy one decent used van, and you’ve brought us these two bloody condemned vehicles!” He didn’t hide his temper.

    “Rexy, I will take care of it,” explained Festus, squinting his eyes with irritation that Rex so doubted him. He had an intuition and self-taught knowledge of engines and all things mechanical. The next evening, Festus brought home a welding torch from work and began carving and reassembling the two Bedford vans, removing a rusty chassis and replacing it with a sound one, removing side windows from one and grafting them onto the other with a surgeon’s skill. The double rear doors swung wide to reveal the entire cavity, making it ideal for camping, cooking and sleeping.

    Rex and Peter worked on the vinyl-covered bench seats, repurposing one set into a makeshift bed. The baby would sleep in the carry cot from her pram, which could be disconnected from the carriage and was spacious enough to sit, sleep and play in. The left side of the van accommodated a kitchen ensemble that Rex built to include a shallow sink that drained out the side panel, and a large plastic container for water with a spigot. Rani’s modest kitchen in the St. Alban’s flat lacked most modern conveniences, but she braced herself for the upcoming trip when she would conjure meals from a single burner kerosene stove, no oven, with no means of refrigeration.

    She began to stockpile tinned vegetables, corned beef and sardines, several large bags of rice, and curry spices. They were accustomed to eating curries every day, even in England and it was easiest to make a curry with whatever they could buy at markets along the way and eat it with bread or rice. Rani could cook a hearty afternoon meal and any leftovers, preserved by spices, could be warmed up and eaten later when they stopped for the night. They planned to buy whatever was readily available at local markets along the way.

    Rani would have liked to nurse her baby longer, but the lack of privacy in the traveling quarters made that an indelicate situation. She packed baby food jars of pureed apricots, plums and apple, boxes of Farley’s Rusk cereal, and tins of Cow and Gate powdered milk for the baby. Though they would take a few packets of disposable diapers,  the pliant white nappies made of toweling would be the staple, along with the small plastic potty that babies in Ceylon were introduced to early in toilet training.

    Rex bought an Agfa camera and a few rolls of film. They planned to make it a somewhat leisurely trip, stopping to see sights along the way, the German countryside, the cathedrals and picturesque bridges of Eastern Europe; they would visit the Holy Land, walking along the steps Christ had taken. He also bought a leather bound journal that fastened with a red waxed hemp string twisted around two flat brown buttons. The creamy pages beckoned for the cobalt ink of his best fountain pen and he wrote in his draftsman’s scrolling script…

    Wednesday, 30 September, 1964 – tomorrow we depart London after nearly three years here. Our leaving is bittersweet as we say farewell to friends we’ve made, yet all are longing to return to Ceylon. Rani and I are eager to show baby Samanthi to our family back home. We have written to tell them of her and sent photos but though we have mentioned we are coming home before the year’s end, we haven’t told them that we intend to make this trip overland.     They would forbid us to do it, and someone we know might have the “evil eye” - just their pondering our trip home might heap upon us, and the baby, some unintentional calamity. In Ceylon, you don’t ever feed your child in public because someone with the evil eye watching might trigger a stomach ache. Such people often don’t even know they have that power.  So, we are heading home in a camping van of our own design, unannounced. We depart from Dover tomorrow at mid-day.

    That night, Alan, Rex’s second-level supervisor at work dropped by the flat, tossed back two small glasses from a bottle of VAT 69 scotch whiskey, shook hands all around and wished the travelers well. He handed Rani a small box, tied with a pink ribbon.  She opened it to find that Alan and his wife had given the baby a tiny silver bracelet with a tiny flat heart dangling from it. She smiled and thanked him.

    “Fernando,” Alan motioned to Rex and they stepped into the kitchen, “you know you can call me, right?”

    “Of course, of course,” said Rex, patting Alan’s shoulder.

    “No, seriously,” Alan’s face lost its usual smile and became stern and concerned. “Call on me if you – you know – run into any trouble along the way. You can count on me if you need anything – anything at all.”

    “Thank you, Mr. Jacobs,” Rex gripped his hand firmly. He caught the meaning in Alan’s eye. This was a dangerous trip and anything could happen. No one in Ceylon could do a thing to help them, even if they had known about the risky journey that was already underway. But Alan, though his means were limited, was a gentleman of his word and would do all that he could.

    They left St. Alban’s Road the next morning, the air heavy with expectation and a hint of rain. Festus flipped on the windshield wipers against the mist. He’d packed certain replacement parts – water pump, hoses, belts, wiper blades. He and Rex had argued two nights ago about the tires. Festus swore that the van’s original tires were good – British tires, rubber most likely from India. But his brother insisted that they replace all four. They finally compromised on two new rear tires, with Rex adding the requirement that they should have tractor treads for better traction. Festus quietly strapped the two he reluctantly removed to the roof rack, along with other things they were taking – a small refrigerator, some household electronics, two records by a new band called the Beatles, and assorted gifts and souvenirs. With the tarpaulin thrown across it, the roof rack ensemble rose like a yeast bread a foot and a half above the van.

    Festus drove first. The Bedford was his responsibility. He ticked off the spare parts in his head, sure of nothing but his ability to improvise. They headed 70 miles east to Dover, where a ferry went across to Oostende, Belgium twice a day. Arriving in time for the late afternoon departure, Rani and Rex took the baby above deck while Peter headed to the canteen to get them each a Walls ice cream. Rani shielded her baby’s eyes from the bright sunlight gaining intensity bouncing off the water. They finally retired to the B deck when the cliffs became too small to see.

    Festus was determined to stay with the vehicle in the bowels of the ship when most of the other passengers had made their way up clanking steel stairs to the upper decks. He felt protective of it and wanted some time alone to think. The ferry’s engines strained as they gathered speed and distanced the craft from English soil, the bow rippling the steel-blue water. The engines of the ferry rumbled beneath his feet and he was lulled by their steadfast predictability. He spent the two-hour ride circling his vehicle, answering questions from lorry drivers and tour bus drivers who also stayed below deck. They all wanted to know where the van was headed.

    “You heading out for a camping trip, are ye?” asked one driver, removing his cap and rubbing the stubble beneath it.

    “No, we’re going home,” said Festus, pointing to the side of the vehicle where an artist friend in London had painted “London to Ceylon” and decorated the door panels with vignettes of palm trees, bullfights, the waving Ceylon lion flag and a rippling Union Jack. Festus told him they were driving overland to their home in Ceylon, a place the man knew because his father had been shipped there during the war. There were four adults and a baby traveling in the van, Festus said. 

"Bloody hell..." the driver muttered under his breath. He gave an appreciative smile and said, "Well, g'luck then, mate," and walked away shaking his head. Festus wiped the windshield with a rag and waited for the ferry to slip into the narrow inlet at Oostende and lurch to a stop near the car-ferry docks.