Saree

by Su Dharmapala

  ‘Where we are going is about three hours north of here – be prepared to enter hell on earth,’ Dr Gurusinghe said coming up to us on top of the citadel.

  ‘And we grew up four hours east of here in Nayaru,’ Mahinda said, coming up to us and pointing to the lush jungle as Nimal stood silently by him. Nimal had become quieter and quieter the further north we went. ‘We used to have watchtowers around the perimeter of the village. The jungle used to teem with wild elephants and leopards.’

  ‘The sea off the coast was very rich once,’ Nimal added softly. ‘Not like the seas down south or to the west. Fresh bream, Spanish mackerel, prawns, cuttlefish.’

  ‘And crabs, don’t forget the crabs,’ Mahinda added.

  ‘Didn’t Vannan teach you how to swim by pushing you out of an oruwa into a part of the lagoon full of crabs?’ Nimal said.

  ‘Yes, drowning was not the only incentive I had to start to learn to swim. Fast!’

  ‘Not much fish in the sea in these parts anymore. The Sea Tigers planted sea mines and poisoned stretches of the coast,’ Dr Gurusinghe said. ‘The animals suffered more than the people through this godawful war.’

  ‘I just don’t get it,’ Lucky said. ‘About half the population of Colombo is Tamil and there doesn’t seem to be any overt tension now.’

  ‘How much do you know about the conflict here in Sri Lanka?’ Dr Gurusinghe asked, turning to Lucky and me.

  ‘Not much,’ I replied. ‘I grew up in Australia. I knew there was conflict here, but I only ever heard the Sinhala side of the story. Every time there was a bomb blast, my parents would glue their ears to the BBC World Service and then call Sri Lanka to make sure everyone back here was safe – so I only ever heard that the Tamils were bombers and killers.’

  ‘Same here,’ Lucky confessed. ‘We lost all our property here in the Black July riots in eighty-three. Quite a few workers at the mill were killed. My parents had several families stay with us in Kanchipuram, but they left not long after. My dad refused to support any militants and set the dogs on the money collectors when they came to the gate.’

  ‘You are a Tamil – didn’t you feel any sympathy for the cause?’ I asked, surprised. After having seen Mr Nair’s wounds, I had developed a dislike of my own people.

  ‘Yes and no,’ Lucky shrugged. ‘I understood that the Tamil grievances had just cause but my father abhorred the LTTE and their tactics. And he drummed it into me that the average Sinhala person was no more responsible for the government’s discriminatory policies than an average Tamil person was responsible for the acts of terrorism in Colombo. Bombing temples and buses is not the way to win friends and influence people.’

  ‘And he’d be right,’ Dr Gurusinghe said with a firm nod. ‘You must understand that this was not a grassroots conflict in many ways. Sinhala and Tamil people have lived side by side for centuries.’

  ‘I grew up here in the north,’ Mahinda confessed. ‘My best friend and all the people I knew were Tamils. Good people. Honest people. Kind people.’

  ‘So why? Why did this all happen?’ I asked

  ‘Because Sinhala people let power go to their heads when they finally gained freedom from the British and the Tamil people became militant when they lost their position of privilege,’ Dr Gurusinghe replied.

  ‘No one will ever know who threw the first stone. It hardly seems to matter now,’ Mahinda added, looking sadly into the distance. ‘So many people dead. So many lives destroyed.’

  ‘And for nothing,’ Dr Gurusinghe observed very sadly. ‘There is actually no genetic difference between the Sinhalese and Tamil people. We have more in common racially, culturally and religiously than any other two races on the planet – yet we have nearly almost destroyed ourselves over perceived differences.’

  ‘Are you looking forward to seeing some of your family up here again? Maybe even your best friend? Now that the war is over, maybe you can track him down,’ Lucky asked, trying to dispel the gloom that had descended.

  ‘I lost my entire family in one of the massacres,’ Mahinda said. ‘My father, grandmother, my six brothers and sisters were hacked to death. And my best friend Vannan led the attack on the village.’

  It took me a couple of days to get used to working in the squalid conditions in the camp. Actually, it was two days before I could even walk through the ward without being sick to the stomach.

  ‘I wish I didn’t need to leave you here by yourself,’ Lucky had groaned, seeing me looking grey in the little lean-to kitchen with my morning cup of tea.

  ‘She should be fine today,’ Dr Gurusinghe said, coming through. ‘It usually takes doctors about three days to get used to it all. Marion was able to do a few sutures yesterday, and we’ll get her doing field evacuations later today.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I reassured Lucky. ‘Besides, this is not as bad as Menik Farm.’

  ‘No, you’re right, this is not as bad as Menik Farm,’ Lucky agreed.

  ‘And you two saw it during the dry season,’ Dr Gurusinghe added, stirring his three teaspoons full of sugar into his tea. ‘During the monsoon season the main road through the camp turns into a river.’

  ‘Whose bright idea was it to build a refugee camp so close to three rivers?’ I asked. It had simply been appalling.

  ‘The government – who else?’ Dr Gurusinghe muttered angrily. ‘Three generals complained. Three field marshals sent communiqués to army high command. No one listens. I became fed up and quit. Now, I run my clinics without government interference doing what I want to do.’

  ‘Anyway, I’d better head off with Mahinda,’ Lucky said, reluctantly squeezing my shoulder. Their van had just pulled up the muddy driveway. ‘I’ll see you tonight. Maybe we can head off to town and get some dosai?’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ I said before steeling myself to walk through the wards.

  The wards were beds made from what the locals called booru andang. ‘Keeps the sanitation costs to a minimum,’ Dr Gurusinghe had explained. ‘Just boil the cloth that hangs between the coconut wood frame and it’s all fine.’

  I was rather sceptical about it all, though the locals didn’t have much choice. The hospitals up north in Jaffna were overflowing and it took several hours driving along dirt roads to get to Trincomalee, the next closest town, by which time a seriously injured person would be dead.

  Taking a deep breath, I started my rounds, seeing to children with amputated limbs and people who needed treatment not only for burns but for the shock of losing their hearing.

  ‘That is the problem of landmines,’ the good doctor had explained. ‘A person loses more than just their limbs – they often lose their sight and definitely lose their hearing. So, this is where I need your help this week. Could you check on the state of people’s hearing?’

  I sat myself down in a corner of the clinic and had the orderly bring me patient after patient. I’d do an acoustic reflex test assessing how much a person could hear or not. Back in Australia, an audiologist would carry out tests like these, but I’d quickly learned that paramedical specialists were thin on the ground.

  I was completely immersed in my work when a commotion started in the courtyard.

  ‘I don’t care who he is! If he is hurt, he gets attention here,’ Dr Gurusinghe roared as an army truck carrying an injured man pulled up.

  ‘We have instructions to get him to Colombo,’ the lieutenant said.

  ‘You bloody fool! This man’s femoral artery is gushing blood. He’ll be dead before you get him halfway to Anuradhapura!’

  To add to the chaos, the man’s innumerable children were screaming in the truck.

  ‘Do what you must, doctor,’ the lieutenant finally said as I ran to the scene. ‘But he has constant military supervision! Constant!’

  The man was rushed to the makeshift surgical area while I tended to the children, who were covered in dirt and blood.

  ‘Come, come!’ I tried enticing them from the back of the truck with hand gestures. I spoke neither Tamil or Sinha
la but put my faith in sign language.

  ‘I speak a little English,’ the eldest boy said.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘My father was clearing some land and there was a landmine,’ the boy explained.

  ‘Your father is being looked after by one of the best doctors in the area,’ I reassured them.

  ‘I hope so . . .’ the boy confessed. ‘He is all we have left. Our mother died last year.’

  ‘I am so sorry,’ I said, feeling completely inadequate. The youngest child was barely four or five. A big responsibility for a single father, but what would happen to her if she had no father at all?

  ‘I told him not to go!’ the boy muttered under his breath. ‘But he went to the island anyway!’ Since we went back to his home village after my mother died, he’s got this stupid idea of starting a silk farm there!’

  ‘Perhaps not too silly. My friend Mahinda has just headed up to Kattikatal now. He is thinking of setting up a silk farm in that very lagoon!’

  The boy looked at Marion with surprise. ‘My name is Mahendran. I was named after my father’s best friend Mahinda. He was the person who came up with the idea for a silk farm many years ago in the first place.’

  ‘Mahinda,’ I approached my old friend diffidently. How did you break it to someone that the person who’d massacred his entire family was just down the corridor? ‘I have to tell you something.’

  ‘Yes, my dear?’ Mahinda asked wearily. He looked haunted. He, Nimal and Lucky had just returned from their day in Nayaru and were resting in the small mess hall before they headed off into town for dinner.

  ‘How was the trip to your old village?’ I asked. This was going to be harder than I thought.

  ‘Like walking back through an old dream that is the same but so different. The village is the same but everything is different.’

  ‘The old school is still there,’ Nimal added. ‘The waterhole behind it is as filthy as it ever was.’

  ‘But they don’t farm tobacco there anymore,’ Mahinda said ruefully. ‘And all the old Tamil families have left. New families have moved in. I didn’t recognise any of the faces in the village. I don’t know why I want to build a silk farm up here anymore. There is no one I know who would help. If there was someone, anyone . . .’

  That was when young Mahendran came in search of me. ‘Doctor, doctor,’ the young lad called. Both Mahinda and Nimal turned to look at the boy.

  ‘Who are you?’ Mahinda asked. Something in his voice frightened me.

  The boy took one look at Mahinda and ran in search of his father, but Mahinda gave chase.

  ‘That was what I was going to tell you,’ I called, running after them. ‘They brought your friend in this afternoon. He was hurt by a landmine.’

  Lucky nearly overtook Mahinda and almost tackled him to the ground, but the older man found a nimble strength and speed no one could have foreseen and swerved to avoid Lucky. But he could not avoid the soldiers stationed at the doorway to Vannan’s little room. They’d insisted that he be kept cordoned off from the rest of the patients in the hospital.

  I didn’t really understand what happened next, because Mahinda lapsed into rapid-fire Tamil and Lucky could only understand and translate for me so much of the northern Sri Lankan Tamil dialect.

  ‘You bloody bastard!’ Mahinda screamed in the doorway, straining against the three Sri Lanka Army soldiers holding him back. ‘You killed my father! You killed my brothers and sisters. Prema was like a sister to you! You taught her how to walk! You taught my brothers how to swim! You killed my grandmother – and she fed you! For years!’

  Vannan sat up weakly in his bed, his five children crowding around him.

  ‘I had nothing! Nothing!’ Mahinda screamed, tears pouring down his face. The terrible grief of losing his entire family was still fresh on his face despite the passage of twenty-nine years. ‘What do you have to say for yourself? What, you bloody bastard?’

  ‘Nothing,’ came the weak voice of Vannan. ‘I did what I had to do.’

  ‘You did not have to kill my brothers and sisters,’ Mahinda sobbed hoarsely, breaking down on the ground. ‘Prema was only seven.’

  Vannan got weakly out of bed.

  ‘Stop,’ I cried. ‘He is too weak to walk. He’s only been out of surgery a few hours.’

  ‘Help me,’ Vannan ordered one of the soldiers, who wordlessly jumped to attention and did as he was told. ‘I have dreamt of the day when you and I would meet. Shivani and I talked about it a lot. The only way I could atone for what I did would be for you to watch me die,’ the man said. ‘Yes, I killed your entire family. I was there when they hacked down your grandmother and saw your father plead for your brothers and sisters’ lives. But the LTTE had Shivani. Her brothers sold her to them and told them that I had local knowledge. They threatened to kill her and the entire village if I didn’t join.’

  ‘You should have let them!’ Mahinda roared viciously back.

  ‘You are right. I should have let Shivani die,’ Vannan agreed in a sad voice. ‘Because they killed her in the end anyway. She died in Nayaru Lagoon last year before the Lankan soldiers could save her.’

  ‘We tried, sir, we tried,’ the lieutenant said softly. ‘Your wife got your children to safety before the LTTE suspected what was going on, but they shot her in retaliation.’

  ‘Why did they kill Shivani?’ Mahinda demanded. ‘Her brothers were top LTTE cadres and you were one of their commanders!’

  ‘They killed Shivani because they found out that I worked with Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan and had led the breakaway Colonel Karuna faction.’

  ‘Colonel Jeyam has been working with us for about twenty years,’ the Sri Lankan army lieutenant corroborated. ‘We could not have won the war without men like him. Men who turned people like Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan away from terrorism. That is why we need to get him to safety in Colombo. You never know where the LTTE spies could be.’

  ‘Marry me,’ Lucky asked me.

  ‘Excuse me?’ I asked with surprise.

  ‘Marion, I am in love with you. I want you to dump that idiot Simon and marry me,’ Lucky said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  ‘Lucky . . .’ I replied, shaking my head and standing up, only to be brought up short when I trod on my underskirt. I carefully shifted the yards of silk and turned to face him, still holding a clipboard I’d been using to check some medial supplies. I had rung my mother several days before and told her that I was extending my stay up north by another week so I could visit Nayaru and do some work there.

  ‘Your brother and uncle are dying and you are gallivanting around. Aren’t you ashamed of your behaviour?’

  ‘Mother, I know for a fact that they are not dying. I spoke to Ryan’s doctor and he said that Ryan was starting hydrotherapy next week.’

  ‘What about your uncle? Don’t you even want to spend time with your dying uncle?’

  ‘I also spoke to the doctor about Uncle Manoj and he said he was doing well. The skin graft operations should take place next week and I’ll be back in time for that.’

  ‘Do you have no heart? Don’t you care about me?’

  Blessedly, the call had fallen out. It happened often in rural Sri Lanka. I realised did not feel any pity for my mother. The horror of confronting true adversity meant that I no longer had any patience for her petty problems. How could anyone really care about a pampered middle-aged woman feeling lonely when there were a dozen orphaned children without anyone to even feed or clothe them?

  That was what I’d been doing in Nayaru. Helping out at the orphanage and setting up their food program.

  ‘Thank you, my dear, for your help in the field hospital, but I think your skills would be better used at the orphanage,’ Dr Gurusinghe had said kindly when I’d managed to lose my lunch after seeing another landmine victim. Years of working in the quiet confines of the palliative care unit had in no way prepared me for seeing the horrors of bodies ripped apart by landmines. ‘At th
e rate you are going, we’d have to hospitalise you for dehydration!’

  Another outcome of visiting Nayaru was that I was now forced to wear a saree. Vannan’s mother had not left the area, and upon hearing that Mahinda was back in town, she’d descended on him like a hurricane. She sobbed for several hours the first time they met, telling her side of the tale of what had happened over past two decades.

  ‘When the LTTE were bad, we yearned for the government. When the government is bad, we yearn for something else. This is our fate. To be always suffering,’ she cried. ‘I lost two sons. I know one died but the other one was taken away by a group of men in a white van about ten years ago.’

  ‘Was that Krishna?’ Mahinda had asked aghast.

  ‘Yes,’ Vannan had replied. ‘The tricky thing is that no one knows who it could have been. It could well have been the government or the LTTE.’

  ‘What is being done? Surely news of these injustices must be reported overseas?’ I’d exclaimed.

  ‘There is precious little international intervention can do now,’ Dr Gurusinghe said. ‘Sri Lanka has aligned itself with China and Pakistan. Many of the western nations have lost any clout they had in Colombo through their tacit support of the LTTE.’

  Vannan’s mother stopped paying attention then and turned to the only other woman in the group. Me.

  ‘So, is this your daughter?’ she asked Mahinda.

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘Your wife, then. She is a little young to be your wife but she is a doctor, a medical person like your mother, and she will bear you good children.’

  ‘I never got married,’ Mahinda confessed. ‘I just couldn’t. What could I give a woman? I have spent the last twenty years just looking after Nimal and myself. I have never really left Nayaru. Marion is a good friend, though.’

  ‘What is this friends?’ the elderly woman demanded. ‘Men and women aren’t friends. They are married or related!’ There was a fierce glint in her eye. I suddenly understood where Vannan got his tenacity and courage from.