My secretary had arranged the incoming mail in a neat pile. As I leafed through it, my glance fell on an envelope posted in Colombo. Was it a request for a reference from one of my recent Sri Lankan students? I was about to slice the cover open when Shamsiah’s call reminded me that my Banking Law class was to commence in five minutes. Reluctantly, I dropped the letter back on my desk, picked up my notes and hurried to my seminar room.
When I came back after some two hours, the envelope had slipped my mind. I recalled it only when it dropped off the table when I tried to put my notes in order. Shrugging my shoulders, I tore it open, only to realise that the writer was the widow of my late friend, Ranjan Jeyaratne. Her message was plain. Would I kindly write a short note to be included in a volume planned to commemorate her late husband?
Deeply perturbed, I stared into the void surrounding me. Ranjan Jeyaratne had been shot dead by a gunman in what had turned out to be my friend’s last rally. His assassination had been reported on the BBC. I got the news on my car radio when I drove home from downtown Singapore. The information shook me, but my feelings were mixed. Ranjan had quitted Sri Lanka’s ruling party. He had not crossed the floor by joining the opposition; he ran as an independent presidential candidate. His former party feared he would split the vote.
Ranjan was too shrewd a man to overlook the risks involved. He knew it would be best to wait; but his ambition spurred him on. In the end, he had paid dearly for his courage and resolve.
Most of Ranjan’s contemporaries grieved when they got the news. He had been a charming fellow and a loyal friend. I had good reasons to be grateful to him for my appointment to an assistant lectureship at Singapore’s Law School and for his many acts of kindness during the years we knew one another. The blood on his hands – the atrocities perpetrated by his troops in the Tamil region of Jaffna – would not have quenched my affection and gratitude. Politics, I knew, was a dirty game.
What had disturbed me was Ranjan’s extreme self-centredness. It had driven him to some personal vendettas which militated against my belief in ‘live and let live’. All the same, and notwithstanding his questionable odyssey, I continued to see him as he had been in our Oxford days.
For a long time, I remained seated with the letter of Ranjan’s widow in my hand. Should I accede to her request? My heart whispered that a refusal would be both shameful and ungracious. My mind steered me in the opposite direction. Would it be proper to compose a eulogy endorsing Ranjan’s acts? How could I possibly close my eyes to his evil side?
Torn between these diametrically opposed sentiments, I placed the letter and my notes in my briefcase and got ready to leave. My late friend Tay Fung-Shou – encapsulated in a porcelain figurine affectionately called Alfie and placed in my choice trophies cabinet – was bound to find a way out of the dilemma.
As always, Pat’s barrage of complaints commenced soon after I stepped through our door. She had quarrelled with her sister, had scolded the grocer for being late with his deliveries, and one light in the sitting room was out of order. Reasoning with her was pointless: she would have the last word. When, at long last, she went to watch a Cantonese soap on her favourite television channel, I slipped into my antiques room. My face brightened when I viewed my treasures.
“You always bow like Angmoh, Mr. Mid-Yeast Tourist,” Alfie grinned gleefully from his shelf in my porcelain cabinet. “Like they say: Angmoh is Angmoh, my friend. Seng Seng [Chimpanzee], he also kowtow; but always he ape!”
“Thanks for the compliment,” I retorted, getting ready to give verbal battle.
“Now, now,” observed Alfie victoriously. “Show temper is bad manners. But Angmoh not know better!”
He had embarked on the banter we used to enjoy when he had been alive and kicking. I recalled vividly our endless repartee, and the amused glances bestowed on us by his young daughter, Yuan-Ming, who, even as a grown up, continued to address me as “Uncle”.
My friendship with Tay and Yuan-Ming was a gift of Fortuna. She had guided me to Tay Antiques during my early days in Singapore. The proprietor, Tay Fung-Shuo, had opened his shop in the heart of Chinatown after turning his back on a promising career in one of London’s leading museums. Purporting to be a run-of-the-mill antiques dealer, Tay used to wear a Chinese silk suit with a jacket buttoned up to the chin; and he addressed his customers in an awkward, heavily accented, pidgin. It took me a long time to discover that Mr. Tay was a graduate of Cambridge and London universities and that, under the guise of his United Kingdom alias of ‘Dr Alfred Cheng’, he had published a series of books on Chinese art.
In due course, I started to visit his shop regularly in order to pursue my interest in Chinese ceramics. Tay obliged and, in the course of our friendship, enlightened me. Our lengthy – often exhausting – tours of the world of Eastern art had fine-tuned my perception of my beloved European porcelain. Tay’s brilliant insights sharpened my ability to evaluate art.
At the end of our last tutorial session, when both of us knew a malignant disease would pluck him off before we had the chance to meet again, he gave me a royal gift: the Bowing Harlequin modelled in Meissen in 1741. It appeared only right to dub the figurine ‘Alfie’. Before long I started to chat with it. After a while, the real Alfie and his porcelain alter ego merged in my mind. It was, therefore, befitting that our conversations were held in the special variant of pidgin we had developed during his lifetime. Occasionally, though, Alfie reverted to plain English. In a subtle manner the switch involved a rebuke, as if the speaker had said: “Stop making much ado about nothing”.
“So today you have problem,” Alfie spoke in a kinder tone.
“How you know?”
“Your face open book, my friend; and I good reader!”
Alfie listened attentively. He was, of course, aware of my friendship with Ranjan Jeyaratne. Both he and his charming little daughter had taken a dislike to Ranjan, tolerating him only for my sake. When I mentioned Ranjan’s sad end to Yuan-Ming – by then relishing an artistic Avante Garde existence in California – her response was direct and abrupt: “He got what he deserved; so don’t you fret, Uncle”. Alfie would have been less outspoken.
Today Alfie’s porcelain alter ego was, once again, prepared to humour me by disguising his dislike for the deceased politician. But, even so, he let his displeasure show as soon as I finished my tale.
“But you, Mr. Mid-Yeast Tourist, why you make mountain out of molehill?”
“Why you say so?”
“Your friend’s widow she ask for help: so why problem?”
“You don’t think have three options, three bad options, Mr. Tay?”
“Tell me.”
“Option one: not answer. But this is escape; too ugly.”
“So not option,” retorted Alfie.
“Second option: write nice letter – say Ranjan he great man – but is pack of lies.”
“And you not liar; you honest,” smirked Alfie. “And last option?”
“Tell her truth?”
“Oh yes,” Alfie retorted with gusto. “You say: ‘Dear Mrs So and So, your husband not bad politician and is good friend but also is rake, rogue and womaniser’. Splendid: you think can write?”
“No, Alfie,” I conceded. “Too gross. So perhaps not best answer?”
“The difficulty lies in your classification of the options,” said Alfie, reverting to his scholarly ego. “In reality you have only two choices: to reply or to keep mum; and we have ruled the latter out!”
“The only question is what to say when I reply. Unfortunately, the real story and the myth are incompatible!”
“If you paint them on one canvas, they are,” agreed Dr Cheng. “But why don’t you compose two letters – one telling the truth and another best described as ‘the great leader myth’?”
“Sending them under separate cover?” I asked, still perplexed.
“A poor way out if you send both to the widow. But you better compose them for different audiences. Of course, the two must be reconcilable. But their tones may differ; and you can leave out of each canvas that part of the tale not meant for the respective readers.”
“Isn’t that subterfuge?”
“Perhaps is. But also trick of great historians,” chuckled Alfie, slipping back into our jargon.
“Very well,” I conceded, sticking to plain English for the moment. “So, the great leader myth is to be addressed to the widow. To whom should I address the true tale?”
“To yourself or me,” said Alfie, soberly. “You see, object is get out of your system.”
“And myth must write first,” I reflected. “Must answer widow soon; and true story I take perhaps two years!”
“Correct; and is good order – when you write myth you think of Ranjan good side. So perhaps not so much poison in true tale; your glasses kindlier tinted.”
I spent ten days on my reply to Ranjan’s widow. The final three-page obituary was fit for inclusion in a commemorative tome. It covered Ranjan’s years at Oxford, his performance as a lecturer in Singapore and, to a point, the tale of his rise in the politics of his home country. Superlatives were scarce. The sketch I drew described Ranjan as a good scholar, an accomplished lecturer and an aspiring politician.
I gave my late friend credit for having been a loyal comrade and a realistic and thoughtful individual. It appeared best not to refer to his appeal to women, to his numerous flirtations and to his first, unhappy and sterile, marriage. The reference to his publications – described as small in volume but sound and meticulously researched – and a mention of his neatly organised and well-presented teaching courses helped me to sidestep his questionable commercial and financial exploits. The only side of his character which I lauded in flowery language was his devotion to his Sinhalese race. Ranjan had often put its cause above his personal interests.
I concluded my obituary with a banal sentiment: it was a tragedy that Ranjan’s contributions to the cause of his people had been terminated by a bullet fired by a cowardly hooligan. The sentiment was genuine; my affection for Ranjan had remained intact. Still, the myth did not reflect my reservations. But, then, a myth is supposed to draw the hero’s portrait in bright colours.
Having re-read the brief myth, I concluded that Ranjan’s widow would find some solace in it and that, in any event, my letter to her would serve the purpose for which I had composed it. A chat with Alfie convinced me further that, although my punches had been pulled as required, I had not compromised the truth. A candid obituary – read side by side with the myth – would shed further light on Ranjan’s life. At the same time, neither tale would give the lie to the other. I hoped that an objective reader, an unbiased stranger, would reach the same conclusion.