Mosquito

That afternoon, after he had finished his target practice with the silencer on the gun, Gerard told Vikram he had something important to say.

‘First,’ he said, ‘well done!’ He took the gun from Vikram. ‘Congratulations! You’ve worked hard and as a reward I shall take you on a little operation with me at the end of the month. If you do well at that, there will be bigger and more interesting assignments ahead, OK? And then, in a few months’ time you will go to the Eastern province for something extremely important.’

‘What?’ asked Vikram. ‘The Eastern province? Isn’t that where the Tigers are trained?’

‘Vikram,’ said Gerard, ‘you must learn not to ask too many questions. You’ll be told everything. But, all in good time. Don’t ask questions. You aren’t going to be an ordinary member of the Tigers, believe me. You are both intelligent and a good shot. So now you’re going to be trained for something top class. Trust me, men.’

‘When?’ demanded Vikram.

‘Patience, patience,’ said Gerard, holding up his hands mockingly, shaking his head. ‘Patience is what’s required now. We’ve both waited a long time to prepare you for this. Don’t ruin things. I promise you the time is coming when you will avenge your family. I fully understand how you must feel. Just wait a little longer. And for heaven’s sake, Vikram,’ he added, ‘do me a favour. Go back to school for your exams. You don’t want to attract any notice at this stage. If the Mendis girl knows you’re absent, then others will too.’

Vikram picked up the gun and held it below his crotch. He stroked the tip of the barrel. He laughed, a high-pitched out-of-control scurrilous screech.

‘That’s enough,’ said Gerard sharply. ‘Put it down. It’s not a toy. You can have all the things you want if you show restraint. You’ve been earmarked for great things. Now, go back to school.’

Gerard was aware that underneath his silent exterior Vikram was coiled like a spring. He knew whatever simmered in Vikram was dangerously near the surface. And that it was best to keep a tight control over him. Just in case.

A few days after his exams, Vikram saw the Mendis girl once more. She did not see him. She was hurrying in the direction of the beach. Interested, he decided to follow her. He watched her body move darkly beneath the lime-green skirt, in the sunlight. Her hair was tied up and it swung to and fro as she walked. Where is she going? Vikram wondered curiously.

The road went nowhere in particular. In fact, it was not possible to reach the beach this way without scrambling over the giant cacti. Then the road curved, and suddenly it was possible to see the sea. The beach was completely empty and scorched. Just before the road came to an end, there appeared a long, low house, surrounded by a flower-laden wall and flanked by two stone lions. The top of the wall was covered in barbed wire. Vikram remembered now. It was the house where the UK-returned writer lived. He had seen the man once when he had come to the school. The teachers had shaken their heads, saying he was a Singhalese who was pro the wretched Tamils. What kind of a Singhalese was he? they asked. Still, they had said, he was famous. Misguided, but famous. So they had invited him because of that.

A large jackfruit tree overhung Theo Samarajeeva’s garden wall. Its leaves were thick and succulent, and the girl, stopping outside the gate, began to draw in her notebook. She had no idea she was being followed. Nor did she seem to notice there was no shade. Nulani Mendis sat on the withered grass verge absorbed in her drawing, as the low hum of mosquitoes and the drowsy buzz of other, more benign, insects slowed to a halt in the baking air. Across the sun-drenched garden Vikram could just make out the writer, in his pale linen trousers and his white shirt, working at a table on the veranda. The veranda had been bleached white by the sun and appeared dusty in the dazzling light. Then the manservant came out to fetch the girl in for lunch, and shut the gate. And that was all Vikram saw of any of them that day.

* * *

Nulani had almost finished the portrait. In a week she would be ready to show both Theo and Sugi.

‘I will cook kiribath, some milk rice, ‘Sugi said. ‘And buy the best fish.’

‘I shall decide where it must be hung!’ said Theo.

An air of gaiety descended. Sugi replaced the lanterns in the trees. And Theo declared the day of the unveiling a holiday from his writing. His work was progressing slowly. In October the film of his second book would be out. He would have to go to London for the premiere.

‘For how long will you be gone?’ asked Nulani, her eyes suddenly anxious. ‘Will they let you come back?’

Her hair was coiled against the back of her neck and a frangipani blossom quivered just above her ear. Theo watched it shake as she moved her head, wondering when it would fall. Once, he nearly put his hand out to catch it. How could he explain to her that no one could stop him coming home? When had he started to call this place home again?

His agent had rung him complaining. It was impossible to get a call through to him, did he know that? The lines were always down. How could he live in a place with no access to the outside world, where the lines were always down? The agent hoped he was working. Through the crackle on the line the agent sounded like a peevish nanny. The summer in London, he told Theo, was disappointing. Wet, cold and miserable. The only consolation, he supposed, was that the telephones worked!

Because the curfew was not in operation just now Theo walked openly on the beach. The sand, ivory and unblemished, seemed to stretch for ever, smooth and interrupted only by his footsteps. One evening Nulani went with him. She had told her mother she was working late on the painting. They walked the wide sweep of beach without seeing anyone, with only the slight breeze and the waves for company. It felt as though they had walked this same beach for an eternity. She walked close to him, like a child, her hand brushing against his arm. He felt her skin, warm against him. He had an urge to take her hand and cradle it in his two hands. He knew she was worrying and he wanted to tell her to stop. But he felt helplessly that he had no right to intrude.

‘I feel as if I have known you for ever,’ the girl said suddenly. ‘D’you think we knew each other in our last birth?’

He swallowed. Her eyes were large and clear. They seemed to mirror the sky. Looking at her he could not think of a single thing to say. Twenty-eight years between them and still he was lost for words, he thought, amazed. They walked the length of the beach and he watched the frangipani in her hair, marvelling that it did not fall; half hoping it would, so that he might catch it.

Chapter 4

‘WHEN CAN I SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE?’ asked Theo impatiently. He sat squinting at the sun. His white shirt was crumpled and the light cast purple shadows against the creases of the cloth.

The girl smiled. ‘What if you don’t like the painting?’ she asked, teasingly. ‘What if the money you are paying my mother is wasted?’

‘I will love it,’ he said, certain. ‘No question. I can’t wait. Don’t forget, I saw it when you began. And another thing, while I remember, I want the money to be kept for your work only. Should I tell your mother that?’

She laughed. What did she need the money for? She had wanted only to paint him. It will soon be October, thought Theo. The rains would come then, he knew. When they broke he would be in London. He did not tell her but he no longer wanted to go. The film had no significance for him. It was all part of another life. A life he seemed to have discarded with alarming ease. Living among his own people, here in this amorphous heat, seeing the mysterious and uneasy ways in which one day flowed into another, he felt as though he had never left.

The girl was sitting close to him on the veranda, staring dreamily at the garden. She was so close her arm brushed against his. She had the ways of the very young, he mused. Physical closeness came naturally. He could see the shadows of her breasts, small dark smudges, rising and falling through her thin white blouse. She looked very cool and self-possessed. And she seemed happier. He realised with shock that loneliness had clung to her like fine sea dust when he had first met her. But now she’s content, he thought. Now she is happier.

He wanted to think he had given her something, some comfort for the loss of her father. Even if all he did was offer her a space and encouragement to paint, surely that was better than nothing? He felt a growing certainty in his desire to help her. He felt it rise above the anxieties of this place.

‘You must work here when I am in London,’ he said.

An idea was forming in his mind. He did not know whether to tell her. He wanted to organise an exhibition of her paintings. But she had opened her notebook and was drawing again, her eyes half shut against the glare. Green and red splashed against him, other stories unfolded. He saw she was drawing his outstretched foot.

‘You can’t keep drawing me!’ he said laughing, moving his foot out of sight. ‘Now look, I’ve been thinking, I want to organise an exhibition of your paintings. I can’t do that if you only draw me!’

‘Where? Colombo?’ Her head was bent over her notebook.

‘Yes, maybe,’ he said, suddenly wanting to take her to London with him in October.

Thinking, what was wrong with him that he could not bear to be parted from her? He knew nothing about art but even he could see the astonishing things that were conjured up by her hands. They were the hands of a magician. Like shadow puppets they illuminated other dimensions of the world, probing the edges of things and those corners where drifts of light revealed all that had been concealed from him until now.

‘You must work hard until I get back,’ he said instead, trying to look stern.

So that she threw her head back and burst out laughing. And he saw, how in spite of everything she had been through, her youth could not be contained but was mirrored in her laugh. It was low and filled with happiness. October is still a long way off, he reassured himself. I’ll feel differently then.

The hot season was coming to an end and the full moon was ten days away. Twenty kilometres from the town was a sacred site where the festivities were beginning. It had been at the time of the festival that her father had been murdered, Nulani told him. Just before the water-cutting ceremony, in the build-up to poya, the religious festival on the night of the full moon. All across the town fear mushroomed in polluted clouds, hanging over two thousand years of faith. Fear seemed inseparable from belief. Men with bare feet walked over red-hot coals or swung themselves on metal hooks across the coconut trees. And all the while, interwoven with the sounds of drums and conch shells, the nada filled the air.

‘You must be careful,’ said Sugi. ‘Not everyone is a believer. These are troubled times. And even if,’ he added, ‘even if they are believers, some people still have evil intent.’

Every year Sugi went to the festival. He always met his family there; he had done this for as long as he could remember. But this year he was worried about leaving Theo on his own.

‘This is the time when some people try to put curses on their enemies.’

‘Sugi, for heaven’s sake, what d’you think is going to happen? No one’s interested in me. I’ll be perfectly fine.’

‘But the girl won’t be here either,’ said Sugi worriedly.

Theo laughed. The girl was going with her mother to the festival. They were going to pray for her brother Jim. To be certain he would get the scholarship.

‘Well, I thought you’d be pleased about that,’ he teased, giving Sugi a sly look.

‘Sir!’ said Sugi reproachfully.

‘Oh, Sugi, I’m only pulling your leg. I’m going to work like mad while you’re away. No distractions, no chatting, you know. No stopping for tea. Just work. I shall have most of this next chapter finished by the time you both get back. You’ll see.’

In the now skeleton-staffed Department of Tropical Diseases, a conference, planned two years previously, had to be cancelled because of lack of funds and resources. Many eminent scientists from all over the world, having been invited to give papers, were now told the unstable situation on the island made it impossible to guarantee the safety of their stay. It was a disappointment for all those who had worked tirelessly to eradicate the threat of an epidemic. An article appeared in a scientific journal. ‘No animal on earth has touched so directly and profoundly the lives of so many human beings. For all of history and all over the globe the mosquito has been a nuisance, a pain and the angel of death.’

Deep within the jungle the festival was in progress. A god with many hands sat inside the dagoba. The monks had placed him there, hoping he would give an audience to the crowds. This happened every year; it was the highlight of the festival. People came from far and wide to pray to him. The hands of this many-handed god were empty apart from his spear. He looked neither right nor left. If he heard the prayers of the tormented he gave no sign. There were peacocks at his side and sunlight shone on his burnished anklets. Young girls brought him armfuls of offerings, walking miles in the boiling heat. Young men came carrying hope. He received each of them without a word. All day long the drumming and the sounds of elephant bells filled the air in a frenzy of noise and movement. Trumpeters and acrobats walked the roadsides while men with tridents chalked on their foreheads paid penance for ancient inexplicable sins. Elsewhere the ground was strewn with red and yellow flowers and the heavy smell of cinnamon was underfoot. There were giant mounds of sherbet-pink powders and uncut limes piled up on silver platters everywhere.

The many-handed god watched them all. He watched the backs of the women bent in devotion. Who knew what they prayed for? Was it for abundance in their wombs? Or was it simply peace for the fruits of these same wombs that they desired? The crowds came with their coins tied in cloth, with their ribbons of desires, their cotton-white grief and their food. As night approached a full moon arose across the neon sky silhouetting the dagoba, white and round, with a single spike pointing at the stars. Hundreds of coconut flames fanned an unrelenting heat.

Midnight approached and the temple drums grew louder, announcing the arrival of the Kathakali Man of Dance. The crowds gasped. With his pleated trousers and beaded breastplates, the Kathakali Man pointed his fingers skywards. He seemed to be reaching for the stars. With ancient gesture and sandstone smile, he danced for the gaping, amazed gathering. The Kathakali Man had a many-faceted jewel that gleamed in his navel and a peacock’s cry deep in his throat. His drum tattooed yet another ancient tale, telling of those things which were allowed and those which were forbidden. His was a dance of warning. History ran through his veins, giving him authority. Everyone heard him in the neon-green night but not everyone was capable of interpreting what he said. Those who ignored him did so at their peril, he warned.

Long ago, in the days before the trouble, people from England used to come to see him. They came simply because they knew they could find native colour and because, in this sacred place, even the statues smiled. They did not understand the real meaning of a sacred site. They came for rest, for healing herbs and pungent oils. And sometimes the many-handed god welcomed them, and sometimes he did not. Now that the troubles were here no one came from England. Nothing but a steady stream of hope walked through the jungle to the dagoba. Nothing but despair showed through the brave colours of the processions.

Sugi stood in the crowds watching the festival. He was waiting for his relatives. While he waited he looked around him to see if there were others he knew. He noticed Mrs Mendis. Ah, observed Sugi, she is here for her son Lucky Jim. Born with the kernel of luck that Mrs Mendis protected with the husk of her own life. No doubt she wanted the kernel to grow. She’s a true believer and so she knows, true believers had a better chance. She wants nothing for herself, thought Sugi. But then, he noticed, Mrs Mendis had forgotten about her daughter. Sorrow, like too much sun, has blinded her. Mrs Mendis left her clay curd pots, her crimson flowering pineapple and her kiribath, milk rice, at the feet of the god. Without a doubt, thought Sugi, watching silently, the god will grant her wish. For it must surely have been decided in another life that Jim’s luck could only grow. Then Sugi glanced at Nulani Mendis. The child was lost in thought. What future will she have? he wondered, pity flooding his heart. With a mother like this! Sugi had been watching the girl for months. He was astonished at how she had changed. When she had first come to the beach house she had been silent and unhappy. Then slowly she had begun to blossom. In the beginning, he remembered, her unhappiness had blotted out her light. But gradually she changed. Her eyes shone, she laughed. And she talked all the time. Sometimes she drove Sir mad, Sugi knew. Sometimes they would exchange looks of amusement. And recently, thought Sugi, pensive now, Sir had a different look in his eyes. But Sir himself seemed unaware of this. Only Sugi knew.

A sudden harsh sound in the trees sent a flock of iridescent blue magpies bursting into the sky as though being lifted by a gust of wind. Several people threw themselves to the ground, crying. Was this an ill omen? Sugi looked uneasily around him. There was no wind. Ancient laws were written all over this sacred site. Sugi was a man of simplicity. And he was afraid. He saw the girl ahead of him in the procession look up at the magpies. She was smiling at some secret thought of her own. Yesterday she had let Sugi look at her latest painting. It was nearly finished and was a remarkable painting, of glossy greens and quiet violets. It was full of something else as well, Sugi saw. Something Nulani Mendis had no idea of. Painting was what she had brought into this life, Sugi told himself, watching her now. It was her fate. He knew her talent would never leave her. He watched as she bent her head and prayed. He knew she was praying for her brother. And he knew there were other undiscovered longings in her heart.

The procession had brought all sorts of people out. Some of them were not the kind of people who usually went on pilgrimages. One of the people in the crowd was Vikram. Gerard had told him about the sacred site.

‘Go and see it,’ he had said. ‘Mingle, learn what goes on there. Watch the Buddhist monks and look out for the army checkpoints. You should always talk to the army. Get them used to your face. Could be useful for the future.’

And he winked at Vikram. Then he put his hand on the boy’s shoulders, never noticing how he winced, not realising Vikram did not like being touched.

So Vikram went to the festival. The anniversary of the massacre of his family was approaching. Every year around this time he had nightmares. He would wake up to the sound of grinding teeth and discover they were his own. He would wake with an erection or with his sheet wet. And, always, he would wake with a skullful of anger punctured as though by knives. In the morning he was fine again, back to his usual indifferent self, with all disturbance forgotten. But for a couple of nights, close to the anniversary of the deaths, things were bad. On these occasions, Vikram heard, quite clearly, as if from a distant part of Sumaner House, his mother’s muffled screams, his sister’s voice crying out in Tamil. Why had they cried so much? What had they hoped to achieve? Mercy, perhaps? Had they not realised they were about to die? That no amount of crying would help them in the long dark place they had reached? From where he crouched, rigid under the bed, all Vikram had seen were their hands waving in a gesture of helplessness. The hands that had held him moments before, and had stroked his head, were now waving their goodbye. From his hiding place he could see fingers threshing and flaying the air, engaged in some ancient struggle, and in his dreams, so many years later, it was this image, of those hands forever beating the air, that he still saw. Gerard had reminded Vikram that his family needed to be avenged. They were waiting for the day, Gerard said, when, like a half-finished jigsaw, they would be made whole again.

So Vikram walked through the jungle, following the sound of the drums like everyone else. Thinking his own thoughts. On the way he passed a Coca-Cola lorry and a black Morris Minor. They were tangled and smashed together in a crash. Curious, he stopped to investigate. Bodies were tossed carelessly across the overgrown path, reddish-brown liquid frothed from under the lorry. Just looking at it made Vikram thirsty. Other people had visited the site of the crash before him. They had plundered the victims, taken their money and their jewellery. There was nothing left to take. Vikram stared. One of the bodies was that of a woman. A long deep ridge exposed the tendons and muscles across one part of her face. Bone jutted out. A fountain of blood flowed from her mouth. Her hands moved feebly like an ant on its back, clawing the air. Vikram looked at her impassively. She was beginning to bloat and her lips reminded him of the blood-swollen bellies of mosquitoes he was forever swiping. But, thought Vikram walking on, she did not look in so much pain. How long would it take for her to die? he wondered idly. Would she be dead by the time he had walked two dozen steps, or half a mile? Would she be dead by the time he reached the sacred site? Vikram continued on his way, following the distant noise of drums and the monkeys that swung in front of him from tree to tree. He could hear the bells of the Kathakali dancers somewhere in the distance.

He came to a reservoir. When he had been quite small, his mother had taken him back to the village where she had been born. There had been a reservoir there too. It was so large that Vikram had thought it was the sea. In those days Vikram had not yet seen the sea. There were trees all around the banks of this great stretch of water, frightening jungle vegetation, tangled and ugly. Branches and creepers trailed succulently along the forest floor. Small emerald birds flew harshly about. Vikram was three years old and he had been frightened. His aunt or his sister, he could not remember which, held him up in the water, someone else bathed him. Vikram had cried out. They told him the water was pure and clean. Later, sitting on the steps of a now forgotten house, the same girl, whoever she was, taught him to knit. Knit one, purl one.

‘See,’ she had said, laughing. ‘Look, he has learned to knit. Baby is very clever.’

The sun had beaten down on his head as he sat on the step of the house.

‘I’m thirsty,’ he had said in Tamil and instantly they had brought him a green plastic cup of king coconut juice and held it while he drank thirstily.

They had called him Baby; it was the only word of English they knew and they were proud they too could speak English, even though they had not been to school. Vikram knew they had loved him. Their excited voices had encircled him, round and round, picking him up and kissing him until he laughed with pleasure. He supposed it was pleasure.

The reservoir near his mother’s house was smooth and clean, and aquamarine. A mirror reflecting the sky. The one he was passing now was brown and mostly clogged with weed. There had been no rain here for a long time.

After he had prayed for his sister’s family and for his mother’s health, Sugi took his leave of them. He needed to get back home. His mother, who was old and frailer since he saw her last, kissed him goodbye. She was glad her son was doing so well, working for Theo Samarajeeva. A decent man, she said, a man for the Sri Lankan people, the kind of man that was desperately needed. They had heard all about his books and now there was to be a film too, about the terrible troubles in this place. It was good, she told her son, the world needed to hear about their suffering.