The Beach at Galle Road

by Joanna Luloff

  She was surrounded by bodies and voices. Along with the tugging came pleas she couldn’t understand. One woman held out her child and shoved his arm in Lucy’s face. There was an infection spreading over his skin. It had turned black and the boy wailed in pain. Another woman grabbed Lucy’s hands and pointed to her belly and then to her child’s belly. The woman shook her head and opened her palms to suggest emptiness. Someone was tugging at the hem of Lucy’s skirt. Someone else had grabbed her other hand. But Lucy had stopped seeing anything. She closed her eyes and felt the pushing and pulling hands on her body, until a stronger grip clutched her upper arm and tugged hard. “C’mon,” Isak urged. “We’re setting up down there.”

  Lucy held on to his arm as they made their way to the back of the warehouse. Rajith was trying to keep order, attempting some instructions to get people to form a line. “This is Danuja,” Isak said, introducing Lucy to an older woman wearing a white dress. “She is a nurse who will be helping us today.”

  Lucy nodded at the woman, who smiled briefly before she began opening several boxes of syringes.

  “It would be a big help if you could work with Rajith,” Isak said. Lucy’s head was whirring, but she felt herself nodding at whatever Isak was saying. “If you could help sterilize their arms”—Isak gestured to the growing line—“it’ll make things move faster.” When Lucy gave no obvious response, he added, “We’re giving tetanus and TB jabs today.”

  Lucy stood in front of the growing line. She accepted people’s outstretched arms and she rubbed alcohol pads onto their skin. She made a point of looking at the face of each person who passed in front of her, but nothing seemed to be registering in her mind. She couldn’t be sure if she was smiling or grimacing as she met each set of eyes. Her mouth filled with saliva as she willed herself not to throw up. A boy approached her, and without looking, Lucy reached for his right arm. It took a moment before Lucy realized why he was hesitating. His T-shirt flopped emptily on his right side; where there should have been an arm, there was nothing. He shifted, embarrassed, for a moment, grinning up at Lucy, until his mother grabbed his left arm and offered it to Lucy instead. She attempted an apology, but before she could get the right words out, there was another child in front of her. Her throat was burning and she thought she could hear the sound of her own blood rushing against her ears. She wasn’t strong enough for this. She was going to faint. She swallowed hard and rubbed the alcohol onto the next boy’s thin arm.

  As the line began to dwindle, Lucy noticed a young man lingering at the end. He would meet Lucy’s gaze and then quickly avert his eyes. She was exhausted, and the man’s passivity was beginning to irritate her. When she motioned for him to come over, he surprised her by speaking perfect English.

  “Excuse me, miss,” he said. “My name is Manju and I am looking for my brother. They tell me you go from camp to camp and you document everyone’s name and the medicines you give them, so I am looking for my brother’s name on your lists.”

  Lucy was startled by his politeness and was at a loss for words momentarily.

  “His name is Lalith and he will be sixteen years old.” The man was standing quite close to her now, and Lucy could smell some old injury festering beneath his shabby clothes. “Miss, if you please, check your lists.”

  The heat and the man’s smell were making Lucy dizzy. Luckily, Rajith showed up just at this moment, offering Lucy his canteen. “Are you all right, Miss Lucy?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, but this man needs help. Can you bring him to Isak, please?” She tried to smile at the young man, give him a nod of encouragement or something, but mostly she just wanted him to go away. She knew nothing about the lists he was talking about, but she doubted he would ever be able to track down the records he was looking for. Isak would know what to say to him.

  SOMEHOW LUCY MADE it through the day. She was now helping Rajith hand out powdered milk and jugs of bottled water. Isak was still inside the warehouse, examining patients with more serious problems—infections, mysterious fevers, dysentery. Before she had left the immunization table, he had winked at her and given her a thumbs-up. She had felt too humiliated to respond. Certainly he could see how scared, disgusted, weak, she had been.

  The distribution of supplies was surprisingly orderly—no one was pushing or pulling or forcing his way to the front of the line. Lucy heard different voices whispering thank-yous, but she had stopped seeing anything. She kept her eyes focused on the frayed tomato plants, long abandoned, in the near distance. The boxes were emptied, and soon she was back in the car, the shock of the AC sending shivers through her. Isak was talking to Rajith, who scribbled notes into a brown book. “The well water is undrinkable,” Isak said. “We need to make a recommendation for more regular distributions of bottled water.” He turned to look at Lucy, his grin still intact, a wink crossing his eye. “You did great today, darling.”

  How can he look at me like that? she wondered. She turned her gaze to the window and wished very much to fall asleep.

  BACK AT THE rest house, Lucy continued to organize the linens and take dinner requests from her guests, but she started to spend more and more time in her room. She drew illustrations for more dialogues, made conjugation graphs, and pasted magazine images onto old pieces of cardboard. She had been very cold to Isak since they returned from the camp; she just couldn’t bear his good-naturedness. She didn’t understand it, how it was possible when he spent his days the way he did. If she had been more honest with herself, she would have acknowledged that seeing him embarrassed her. He reminded her of how weak she had felt, of her fear and revulsion. He didn’t seem too hurt by her distance, though; in fact, he had begun a flirtation with a German nutritionist who would be staying in Jaffna for the next month.

  Lucy heard rumors throughout the house that the Tigers were battling with the government on the nearby Colombo Road and that they had once again laid claim to the no-man’s-land. She ignored most of these conversations—it didn’t seem to matter who took over what part of the road. There always seemed to be fighting there and it always remained at a distance. Jaffna Town had no appeal for anyone anymore, she told herself.

  LUCY BEGAN THE next month at school with renewed determination. Here was something she could at least have some control over, she told herself. Even if the girls were only capable of prolonged silences and embarrassed giggles, she could still try. And even if Shrini was unwilling to befriend her or even respect her efforts, she could still stand in front of her semicircle, repeating, “I go. You go. She goes. We go. They go.” She could still show up and let the girls know she was acknowledging them, recognizing their right to be in school, to have an education, a childhood.

  Over the weeks, she wrote lesson plans and she taught the girls songs. She daydreamed a lot, and her thoughts often traveled to Galle. She was making some progress. The girls were getting more comfortable with her and they seemed to enjoy the songs. The youngest particularly enjoyed “The People on the Bus Go Up and Down.” Lucy always felt embarrassed when she sang along, especially if Shrini passed by during the lesson. But the girls giggled, especially during the verse when the angry bus driver tells his passengers, “Move on back!” At this point in the song, Dhamika would get up and play the role of the stern conductor, pointing her fingers at the seated girls. In these moments, Lucy wondered what her mother would think if she saw Lucy there, leading a song she had taught Lucy as a little girl. It seemed remarkable, even to Lucy, that these girls in Jaffna, sitting on handkerchiefs in a dusty field, could be singing the same songs she had sung in her nursery school.

  Lucy felt focused and occasionally productive. Every once in a while, the image of the boy with the missing arm crept into her memory. Irrationally, she looked for his face in the boys playing cricket on those days they showed up for school. And whenever one of the younger girls tugged on Lucy’s skirt to get her attention, she felt her body tense. But mostly she kept the images of the refugee camp at a distance, just as she kept the news of
military conflicts slightly outside her consciousness, until, of course, the day the war came up and met her.

  IT WAS DURING a lesson about the days of the week when Lucy felt rumbling under her feet. Suddenly, Shrini was in front of her, pulling her toward the opposite end of the pitch. “Hurry,” she instructed.

  Lucy imagined she must have looked like one of her students as she scurried behind Shrini, following the teacher’s flowing head scarf, which had come loose during their flight. Shrini crouched down and removed from the ground a wooden plank that Lucy had never noticed before. One by one the girls climbed down into the darkness, Lucy being the last before Shrini replaced the wood overhead. In this hole, the darkness felt infinite. Lucy couldn’t tell where the walls began around her. She would have thought that here, underground, the air would be damp and cool, but the dusty dryness had followed them down. The only interruption to the ongoing sameness of the dark was the feeling of shoulders and knees and elbows pressing into Lucy from all sides. She wondered for a moment if she was feeling the thud of her own heart or the rhythmic beating of someone else’s nearby.

  Lucy closed her eyes, creating her own darkness, which somehow felt better. She let herself picture Shrini’s face beside her. Serious and responsible. Shrini would keep them safe. Perhaps it was Dhamika whose arm was pushing into hers. She reached out for it and felt a hand clamp around her own, squeezing tight. This was the least alone she had felt since arriving in Jaffna, she thought, and this thought—its absurdity—made her smile in the darkness. But even as she was smiling, she was also thinking about Kirina’s buried family. She was remembering the dank smell of the refugee camp. She took deep breaths to quiet her heart, push the panic back down into her stomach. In her mind she began to write a letter home. How would she start it? she wondered. For the first time, she wouldn’t have to make up anything at all.

  CHANGE

  Kamala woke while it was still dark and recognized the anxious, restless feeling in her. She allowed herself to wonder if she had forgotten something important: Paying her daughter Nilanthi’s cram class fees? Mailing her oldest son Manju’s university acceptance letter? Enrolling Lalith, her youngest, for his grade five exams? Buying a new writing pad for her middle son, Rajit? In her mind, she checked off each of these errands as she used to, assured herself that there was really nothing she had forgotten, and hoped the anxiety would subside. But she knew these little games of avoidance wouldn’t work any longer. She reached out for her husband’s back, rising and falling in the dark—lately she had been envious of his easy sleep—but still her nervousness remained. She swallowed hard and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Knowing that her nerves would distract her until she was consumed with the bustle of the day, she made her way to the kitchen, the house still dark, to prepare the children’s lunch.

  Nilan, her husband, had noticed her recent absentmindedness. He teased her about it, but Kamala knew he was worried. It was unlike her to forget to pick up his new shirts at the tailors. It was unlike her to burn the fish curry or to pull on the loose strings of her sari until the train looked frayed and shabby. He scolded her gently—My dear, do you plan to burn down our house? If you are looking for something grander, there are simpler ways of hinting—but she saw his concern, and that added to her anxiety. She tried to follow her husband’s lead. Just as Nilan approached each day with his usual efficient cheeriness, Kamala tried to protect her children from her worries. Every morning, she continued to urge them on to school with full bellies and crisp uniforms, waving after them with a broom under her arm. Their last glimpse of her would still be one of purpose and calm.

  KAMALA HAD BEEN trying not to let her distractions get the better of her, but she was changing. She sensed it, and so did her children, no matter how much she tried to shield them. The burnt fish curry was only one example. A few weeks ago, the whole family had been watching a teledrama from Brazil. The central character called Juliana was being forced to marry a high-class officer-friend of her uncle’s, though her heart belonged to a poor horse groomer. Kamala could see the silliness of the plot, the melodramatic twists of fate, but as Juliana sat in front of her makeup table, wiping away tears on her wedding day, Kamala couldn’t stop her own tears from streaming down her face. She quickly dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief and left the couch with the excuse that she was craving tea, but Nilanthi’s eyes had caught hers. Her daughter turned away, perhaps to save her mother some embarrassment, but after a moment Nilanthi joined her in the kitchen, silently gathering teacups onto a tray. Kamala felt Nilanthi’s concern, but she worried that if she attempted a reassuring smile, it would bring back the tears and she would have no explanation to offer her daughter.

  If Nilanthi had asked Kamala what was bothering her, she would have made something up, pretending the story reminded her of a former classmate. Or perhaps made an excuse about feeling tired, not sleeping well. But that would have come too close to the truth. In fact, she hadn’t slept well since her most recent trip to Batticaloa Town, when she was stopped by a boy-soldier who couldn’t have been older than Rajit.

  This was over a month ago now. Kamala had gone to town to retrieve a parcel from Nilan’s aunt at the central post office. This aunt, who had been living in southern India for ten years now, often sent packets of spices or bundles of fabric to her nephew’s family. Although Kamala knew that Nilan’s aunt meant well, she often felt resentful as she retrieved these gifts sent from the north. Had their relative forgotten that spices were quite abundant in Sri Lanka, too? When Kamala felt particularly impatient on these errands, she saw these parcels as reprimands that she wasn’t offering her family the very best and needed handouts from distant relatives, people she had met only twice. In these moments, she conducted imaginary conversations with the aunt. Thank you very much, Auntie, but we have plenty of spices from the local market and my own garden. It is very kind, Auntie, but our tailor only stocks the very best materials, too. She was lost in one of these exchanges when she noticed the boy a few yards in front of her.

  He was wearing a camouflage uniform and clunky black boots; a rifle hung nonchalantly over his shoulder, its point tickling the back of his head. He was handing out flyers to every woman who passed by, as were a series of other uniformed boys dotting the main street. Kamala had heard about these young recruits from her neighbors, but she had brushed aside the rumors, along with the recent reports of anti-Tamil uprisings in the south. And now suddenly they were blocking her path to the bus stop. There was nothing overtly menacing about these boys, looking like schoolchildren playing dress-up, but just their presence sent a shock of panic through Kamala.

  She tried to scurry past the first boy, attempting to look preoccupied and purposeful. But he had reached out, surprisingly gently, and pushed a sheet of paper into her hand. As the paper scraped against her palm, the parcel under Kamala’s arm fell to the ground. She crumpled the paper into her fist and squatted next to the package. She needed to get as far away from this boy as possible and back onto the bus that would take her home, but he was even closer now, crouching beside her. She saw the surprising gloss of his boots against the dust-covered road and the handle of his rifle resting alongside her palm. “I’m sorry, madam.” His voice was gentle, but his presence seemed menacing. She wanted to shove him away.

  Kamala got up quickly, placed the damaged box under her arm, and rushed to the bus stop. She did not look behind her to see the boy’s expression. She was trembling uncontrollably as she took deep breaths and scolded herself for her panic. She looked down at her hands, clenched into fists. There it was, the flyer, jagged and unmistakable, peeking from her fingers. It took her a few minutes before she could open her hand and read the thick black letters on the crumpled paper. RECRUITMENT A PEACEFUL TAMIL STATE IN TIMES OF WAR SACRIFICE SOLDIERES NEEDED. As the bus grumbled and swayed, Kamala folded the paper again and again into tiny squares until the dark letters became shadows. She tucked the paper into her purse and rested her forehead against the
murky bus window. The trees and shops passed in a blur. Suddenly nothing looked familiar.

  When Nilan came home that night, Kamala handed her husband the flyer. She watched him unfold it, square by square, until the dented page filled Nilan’s lap. They were whispering on the porch, the children off to sleep an hour before. Only Manju remained awake, the light from his room casting shadows into the garden and onto Nilan’s face. Kamala wasn’t sure what she was hoping for—perhaps for Nilan to fold the paper back up and reassure her that there was no cause for alarm, that as soon as the government settled things down in the south, there would be no more need for recruiting, here or anywhere else. But Nilan dropped his elbows to his thighs and rubbed his temples. He didn’t look up for a long while, and with each of his prolonged breaths, Kamala longed to snatch the paper from his lap, refold it into her purse, and pretend it didn’t exist. Before he even opened his mouth, Nilan had confirmed her fears: it was different this time.

  Kamala had already spent much of the day creating morbid fantasies in her mind. She had pictured Rajit dressed in camouflage, drawing maps onto the sand, silent and steady. She saw him marching step for step alongside other boy-soldiers. They were teaching him how to rest his gun nonchalantly over his shoulder, how to stand in the heat in heavy boots without growing tired. She didn’t know why it should be Rajit who had so easily become a soldier in her imagination. On the way home, she had felt so guilty about handing Rajit over in her daydreams, she had bought him a new pack of drawing pens. “I’m not handing them over.” Kamala blurted out the words before she even knew what she was saying.

  Nilan finally met her eyes. “What are you talking about?” He folded the flyer once and placed it on the table. He pushed his chair closer to Kamala’s, and she could feel the heat coming off his body. There was no breeze, even on the porch, and everything felt hot and still.