The Boat People

by Sharon Bala

  It was after Ranga’s death that the real exodus began. The judges, as if pricked by their consciences, began granting people freedom in earnest. Five men would go to their detention reviews and four would return happy. But there were more deportation orders too. By April, a month after Ranga’s death, only a few dozen men remained and Mahindan found it possible once again to venture thoughts of the future.

  What he daydreamed about most: having his own flat, playing cards, and making food after work, listening to Sellian tell stories about school. He knew every inch of this imaginary new home – the deadbolt on the front door, the mattress on the floor he and Sellian would share.

  Sometimes, he thought of Sellian older, graduating from the university or married with children, whom Mahindan would visit. They would call him Appappa. Two or three little girls, all of whom resembled Chithra. A time in the future when all of this – the irritating fluorescent lighting, the regulation grey trousers, the detention reviews, the heavy metal doors and exposed tubes of piping – would be a distant memory, all of it worth it.

  But then, another setback.

  They are moving you, Charlika told him apologetically.

  The remaining group of migrants was small enough to be accommodated with Canadian prisoners in the hulking main jail. The price they would pay for the freedom of the others.

  Priya and Charlika came together to break the news to him. Priya had another update: his admissibility hearing had finally been scheduled. May 14, six weeks from now. This was a critical test, the most important one so far. The first – and possibly last – chance he’d have to lay out his case. And if he passed! Priya explained they would then have a stronger argument for ending detention. He’d have Sellian back and there would be only one final hurdle to overcome, the Refugee Board hearing. But if he failed…Admissibility hearings were not like detention reviews. Failure meant deportation. There was no second chance.

  Don’t give up hope, Priya said. We are still fighting.

  Still fighting, always fighting. Like the cadres firing off rounds as the army closed in. Still fighting. Until they weren’t anymore.

  The men were marched single file into an aging building with capricious plumbing. Floors and floors of barred cells, the paint on the bunk beds peeling off in flakes. Mahindan saw the metal bars and thought: Now we are truly being punished.

  The prison was enormous, and Mahindan and his compatriots were separated and assigned to quarters throughout the building. His cell was on the second level. On the first day, he stood at the railing, watching the crowd of strangers milling below, all six feet tall with menacing biceps. They were giants, these Canadian criminals. Mahindan felt the woozy wave of vertigo and squeezed his hands around the railing. One little shove and I would go headfirst to my death. He stepped back quickly.

  His cell had a bunk bed, two square metal lockers, a sink, and a toilet bolted to the wall. Mahindan took in the smooth walls and ceiling, the bars that formed the door of his concrete tomb. The building was older but made of superior construction. There were no overhead bars from which to hang yourself.

  The cell was lit by a bare bulb. The string hung down, swinging back and forth like a pendulum. He watched it for a moment, hypnotized, seeing Ranga’s lifeless limbs. It had taken two guards to cut him down, one hugging his legs while the other stood on a chair.

  I have done nothing to deserve this, Mahindan thought. I am not a criminal. But then he remembered Ranga and knew it was no use. He deserved every ounce of this bad fortune.

  Doesn’t matter what happens to me as long as Sellian can have a future, Mahindan told himself. But he thought of the grandchildren he had imagined and knew this too was an empty platitude.

  A stranger entered, startling Mahindan. He gave a gruff nod and Mahindan understood this was his cellmate. He had a shaved head and invisible eyebrows. His T-shirt sleeves were rolled up and Mahindan saw tattoos inked along the length of both arms, alarming images, pythons entwined with devils. His width seemed to take up the cell. Mahindan flattened himself against the lockers and pretended to organize his exercise books, the CD player, and the two language CDS. He could see the man’s things – a deodorant stick, a calendar with a picture of a lady in a swimming costume. Mahindan’s own possessions struck him as childish. He wished the lockers had doors.

  Lights out in five, a guard called, his boots striding heavy down the hall.

  The springs of the upper bunk complained as the man heaved himself into bed. He didn’t remove his boots.

  Mahindan taped the drawing Sellian had made, months earlier, to the wall by his bed, a crayon talisman. Home, it declared in Sellian’s clumsy hand. Red mangoes hanging ripe from their trees, the hammock swaying in the hot breeze. If he closed his eyes, Mahindan could still picture their house exactly. Could Sellian?

  He crawled under the covers just as the lights were abruptly extinguished, and lay awake, petrified, listening to the bedsprings shift ominously above him.

  —

  Mahindan did not know where they kept the other Tamils. From time to time, he’d see five or six others – in the fenced yard outside or in the canteen, on the bus going to and from hearings. They’d converge on each other then linger, awkward and wordless, after their paltry supply of news dried up.

  More deportation orders had been issued. One woman had screamed for so long they had taken her to hospital. But others had been released; many were already in Toronto. Mahindan thought of them often, safe in the interior of the country. He could pick out Toronto on a map now, and had mastered the provinces and their capitals. Not that it mattered.

  His admissibility hearing was still four weeks away. We’re preparing the evidence, Mr. Gigovaz told him. But we won’t start coaching you until closer to the hearing.

  Whole days passed when he had no one to speak to. Days of lonely meals, solo circuits around the chain-link fence. Nights when he’d struggle to stay awake, his eyes open in the dark, listening to the snoring above him, alert for trouble. He noted the days on the calendar. How slowly they passed, his life trickling away at a tedious drip.

  He remembered Ranga’s broken stride, the hitch in his hips as he dragged his injured leg forward. How arduous survival must have been. Ducking in ditches, driving tent pegs into the parched ground, waiting in line for food, for medicine, the latrine, every blessed thing ten times more difficult with an injured limb. How had Ranga been wounded? Did his leg pain him? Mahindan had never bothered to ask, only turned away. An ounce of kindness, how little it would have cost him. And how much it would have meant.

  Mahindan yawned, missing his morning nap. He had taken to sleeping during the day, at times when he knew he would have the cell to himself. At night, he would fend off sleep with thoughts of Sellian. Increasingly, these were memories of the past. Sellian as a baby wailing in frustration when he couldn’t summon the momentum to roll over. The sweet innocence with which he had slept as a newborn, eyes squeezed shut, a single finger crooked on his chin. This one is a thinker, Mahindan had joked. It was impossible for him to picture their future now, the flat he had once imagined for them.

  He lived for Saturdays. The weight-lifting relief of that moment when his son walked into the visiting room. Mahindan arrived early and sat, agitated, watching the doorway. A young woman entered, her eyes cast down, clutching the sides of her jacket together. An old gent with a cane hobbled behind her.

  A jovial black man came in. He grinned, pointed with an outstretched hand to his friend at the back of the room, and knocked his fist twice on his chest. Then a harassed mother, a child latched to every limb.

  Sellian did not like the new prison. The visiting area was full of surly strangers. The metal tables and chairs were bolted to the ground. Here, they did not have a Coca-Cola machine. Sellian had been thirty minutes late for his last visit and when he’d finally come in, Mahindan could see the residue of tears, eyes faintly pink. Priya was reluctant to admit what had happened, but later she confessed they’d witnes
sed a confrontation outside between a guard and a prisoner. We had to go back to the car for a little while, she told him. Mahindan worried Sellian hated the prison so much he’d refuse to keep visiting.

  A man in a suit entered carrying a briefcase. Mahindan felt sorry for the prisoners whose only visitors were lawyers.

  Then a small head appeared, jet-black hair. Mahindan exhaled. Charlika popped up behind Sellian. She waved when she saw Mahindan, then discreetly faded away.

  Sometimes, if some of the other men were around, she would stay to speak with them. If Priya was with her, the two would leave the visiting room. He didn’t know where they went, only that their return signalled the end of the visit.

  Today, Sellian wanted to talk about swimming. The foster people had enrolled him in lessons and he had just come from the pool. Sellian described blowing bubbles, how he’d learned to paddle his hands and feet like mad to keep his head above water. He demonstrated the technique while panting like a dog and Mahindan laughed, though his heart wasn’t in it. He’d have loved to have seen it first-hand, his son’s floundering attempts at this new skill.

  Sellian had stopped bringing Ganesha to his visits. He spoke of friends Mahindan had never met. On Sundays after church, he practised hitting baseballs in the park. When Mahindan asked about cricket, Sellian said no one played that here. Then he told Mahindan about ice hockey and announced in winter he would learn to skate.

  How are your studies? Mahindan asked now.

  We learned a song in French, Sellian said.

  He sang a little tune in his tinny, off-key voice. Mahindan heard the string of indecipherable words and thought: Another language to learn!

  Something crashed to the ground and they both startled. Sellian jumped up, ran around the table, and gripped his father’s leg. A chair lay on its side. A man glared at a cowering woman.

  Two guards sprinted across the room and seized the offender by his shoulders. Mahindan recognized the man, who was a friend of his cellmate. He was bald with a dagger tattooed down the right side of his neck. Mahindan’s arms circled his son’s back, protective.

  The man struggled against the guards. He yelled a word Mahindan didn’t know. The woman clutched her handbag across her chest like a shield. She flinched and backed away as the guards hustled the man out.

  Sellian had Mahindan’s leg in a vise. His eyes were big with fright.

  It is finished now, Mahindan said, soothing, as the chatter in the room gradually returned. It is nothing to do with us.

  Mahindan pulled his son into his lap. He didn’t say anything when Sellian stuck his thumb in his mouth. Tell me about hitting the baseballs, he said. Are you improving?

  Where is Charlika Auntie? Sellian asked. Let’s go see what she is doing. He sat up and scanned the room, as if expecting to find her.

  She’ll come now, Mahindan said. And what about your new friend…Mahindan struggled to recall the boy’s name.

  Let’s go outside, Sellian said. He jumped off Mahindan’s lap and tugged on his arm.

  What happens when Charlika Auntie comes, hmm? And we’re not here? What will she think?

  I want to go outside. Sellian yanked harder. His voice rose to a grating pitch.

  Sellian had acquired a whine. A demanding petulance Mahindan did not recognize. Those foster people must be spoiling him. Six years of good parenting and it would all be ruined by child snatchers too soft to give proper discipline.

  I don’t want to stay here. Sellian crossed his arms and glowered at his father, defiant chin pressed to his chest. When can you leave this place, Appa?

  Mahindan glanced at the clock. Charlika really would return soon.

  Sellian, Mahindan said. Be a good boy, now. Hmm? Another five minutes and Charlika Auntie will be here to take you back.

  Discipline was a luxury for full-time parents.

  And come, he added. I’ll tell you a story.

  No, Sellian said, and stamped his foot. No! No! No! He furiously shook his head. I hate it here! I hate it!

  A few people glanced over. A woman sitting nearby clucked her tongue.

  Mahindan put his hands on Sellian’s shoulders and tried to catch his eye. A story, he said. Don’t you want to hear about the time your father nearly drowned?

  Sellian flung his head back. He pressed his knuckles to his eyes and gasped through fake sobs. I hate it! I hate it!

  All conversation stopped. Mahindan felt the entire room gawking, their curiosity and judgment.

  Pillai, pillai…Mahindan couldn’t think what to say.

  Sellian let loose an ear-splitting scream. His face reddened with the effort. His eyes squeezed shut. Mahindan looked around helplessly. People covered their ears. Several winced. Mahindan picked his son up, clasped him close, trying to calm him down, desperate to muffle the sound. Sellian jerked away, but Mahindan held tight. His throat constricted. Tears made his vision swim. Sellian flailed and kicked, and still Mahindan held on. He took deep breaths then stopped when they threatened to become sobs. Gradually, the scream died down, replaced by genuine tears. Sellian’s body went slack, docile in his arms. Mahindan pressed his mouth to the top of his son’s head, relieved. He got a hold of his own emotions, forced them down. And when he dared speak, whispered the only words that came to mind: You are loved. You are so loved.

  —

  After Sellian left, Mahindan felt wrung out, wanted nothing more than a long, dreamless sleep. It was mid-afternoon. The time of day when Mahindan’s cellmate played cards with some other prisoners. But when Mahindan returned to the cell, the man was there, pushing and grunting, face down with the floor. Mahindan, astonished, stumbled to a halt and watched his bare back, the hard rounds of his shoulders, flexing while his body, flat as a plank, pumped up and down.

  His head and neck were flushed an angry red. His back was covered in a terrifying pattern – intricately drawn roses and crosses and fish-tailed women, a dizzying mix of the pious and profane. Mahindan picked out a dolphin, its back fin slipping out the left eye of a skull.

  The man was all muscle and ink, his biceps like water barrels, thick veins jutting out. The sight of them made Mahindan queasy. He performed his exercises with precision, one arm now held behind his back, his body rising and falling in a straight line, every muscle taut.

  Mahindan felt awkward hovering, but the cell was narrow and he didn’t have anywhere else to go. The man glanced up and Mahindan looked away, embarrassed.

  Something had altered. The things on the shelf, the colour of the walls, he couldn’t work out exactly what it was. The lady in the bathing costume leered from the calendar. The man’s shirt was slung over the bedpost. The toilet, bolted to the wall, gaped open.

  Mahindan’s focus narrowed in on a blank patch of wall to the right of his bunk. He took a step forward and touched the folded square of masking tape. Sellian’s drawing was gone.

  He turned as the bald man stood. The man rolled his wrists, flexing his fingers in and out of fists. His boots were heavy as he approached. Mahindan broke into a cold sweat. The hallway was deserted. No one would hear him scream. The man was an arm’s reach away, just one extended fist. Mahindan could see, up close, the angry vein throbbing on his bicep. He leaned forward and Mahindan flinched, reflexively bringing his hands up to protect his face. Bending, the man reached around and under the bed, then straightened and held out Sellian’s drawing.

  Dropping his hands, Mahindan stared at the picture. One corner was bent. The man pressed the drawing to the wall where the tape was, banging hard at the middle of the paper. The side of his fist thumped twice over Mahindan’s crayon avatar. Grabbing the shirt off the bedpost, the man pulled it over his head and left the cell.

  Nest egg

  May 2009

  Rumours percolated through the government prison camp. At night, in the tent, in the early morning queue to collect water. Hushed voices that went silent when the Sinhalese soldiers came in sight.

  A man, everyone agreed. With connections. The ship
was in Trincomalee Harbour. Or in Batticaloa. They had to get to Mannar. People must decide quickly. Give the agent the money and let him make the arrangements.

  A vehicle would come to collect them at night. Look for a green van, a new Toyota HiAce with all the passenger windows covered up. No, the van would be black. The Rukmani model, older and less conspicuous. Don’t be foolish! As if the soldiers wouldn’t notice a strange van. No, it was the United Nations vehicle, the one that brought food and medicines, that would smuggle them out. Children hidden in empty burlap sacks. Adults lying flat, everybody quiet. Everyone knows the United Nations vans are never inspected.

  Except they were. Mahindan had seen soldiers force the doors, slash the bags, then kick sand over the scattered grains with their boots as the aid workers helplessly watched. But here was the choice: stay and take a chance or go and take a different chance.

  They will send us home soon, a woman said. She pulled a squirming three-year-old into her lap. President Rajapaksa has promised. Eighty per cent resettlement by the end of the year.

  Rajapaksa has promised! The man she was speaking with turned his head and spat.

  Mahindan wished he wouldn’t do this in the tent where they all ate and slept, he and Sellian and these six complete strangers, the woman with her children, the man and his lame wife who lay in a corner, asleep or dead.

  The government-issued tent was a crude construction of tarpaulin and sticks, the whole thing sheathed in useless mosquito netting. At night, the furious wind flung up dust and stones that tore holes in the tarp so that when it rained, water dribbled in. In a few months, their shelter would be in shreds. And then what? Then nothing. They would just have to make do.

  Unit 75, Block 42. He and Sellian had been assigned here after being processed. After the last, worst bombing, when the remaining Tiger cadres had stripped off their uniforms and tried to run away. They had watched the army advance, trudging through the lagoon in slow motion, their weapons raised and loaded. And Mahindan had thought then: This is the end. Now they will finish us.