Again, she thought of telling Marla everything. Trust no one.
After she hung up, her eyes fell on a pay phone stand at the far corner of the lounge. She could try calling Yak Adura from here, she thought. She made her way over to the phones and dialed the number from the scrap of paper she’d put in her purse. It was in the wee hours of the morning in Sri Lanka. Yak Adura was probably asleep. If this was a home number, there could be a response.
The phone rang three times, and then a sleepy woman’s voice answered in English, “Yes?”
“My name is Grace McCloud,” Grace said.
There was silence for several seconds, then a thump and the clatter of something falling. The voice said, “Yes, yes,” sounding newly alert.
Grace fumbled in her mind, wondering what she could say. “I got an email message,” she said in Sinhala.
“Yes, yes. This is Yak Adura,” the voice said, still in English. “Where are you calling from?”
“The airport,” Grace said. “I’m taking a flight to Colombo, leaving in forty-five minutes.”
“What’s the flight number?” the voice said, suddenly businesslike.
Grace consulted her boarding pass. “Korean Air four seven three arriving in Colombo at 6:20 a.m. Tuesday.”
“Does anyone know you are flying here?”
“Only a friend.”
“Who is the friend?”
“Marla Muller,” Grace said, alarmed at the tone of the woman’s voice. “And my neighbor, Gordon Mann.”
There was another silence. Then the woman said, “Never mind. When you get to Colombo, I’ll meet you. Don’t take a taxi.”
“How will I know who you are? What’s your name? Will you have a name card?”
“No, no. I will wear a . . . no, I will carry a . . . a feather. A rooster feather in my hand. That will be uncommon. Don’t go with anyone else.”
“What is this all about?” Grace said.
“I’ll tell you when we meet,” the woman said. “But you should know that you are in danger.”
“You said my husband is in danger,” Grace said.
“He is in danger because of you,” the woman said. “Because you have found out too much.”
“What do you mean? What have I found out?”
“I’ll explain when we meet. Just be careful. Stay in public view. Don’t go anywhere alone until we meet.”
“Wait, wait! Do you know where my husband is?” Grace said. “And the little girl?”
“No,” the woman said. “But as long as you are out of their reach, he will be valuable to them.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Grace said.
“We’ll talk soon,” the woman said. “Look for me. Rooster feather.” The line disconnected.
37
DUNCAN
Monday
Duncan sat with his hands clasped around his ankles, his chin on his knees, looking out over the black water. He’d scanned the area for snakes before climbing onto a boulder at the overlook point. To his left, the pale figure of the temple guardian was faintly visible among the equally pale roots of the screw pine trees. Above him, the fronds of the coconut trees rustled. He could hear the mighty rumbling of the ocean and the rush of the waves on the rocks below. A sense of awe overtook him, as it often did when he sat alone in the wildness of nature. Everything was right with the world, somehow. This was the kind of peace he would want to teach his child to experience, he thought. If he ever had one.
When he had woken in the wee hours of the morning, he had lain listening to Janie breathing. She snored a little, soft purring sounds that reminded him of a kitten. He had tried to go back to sleep, but even as he lay there, he knew that it would be futile. This happened to him every time he flew to Sri Lanka from the US. On the first three or four nights, he always woke long before dawn. This morning, the insomnia had been compounded by his frustration at being kept at the guesthouse. When the luminous digits on his watch said it was half past four, he’d given up. He’d dressed quietly and tiptoed out of the house.
Now he waited, watching for the dawn to come. A sliver of a moon had emerged from behind clouds, laying bits of shivering silver across the wide swathe of dark water below. He wished Grace could experience this sense of peace. She was always rushing from one task to the next. Sitting still was not something she enjoyed. He wondered if she was at the lab. In New Jersey, it was late afternoon on Sunday. He hoped Bent had not said anything to worry her when he called. He wished there was some way he could get in touch.
The sound of pebbles clattering startled him. Turning his head, he was barely able to make out Jotipala approaching.
“There is still moonlight and sir is up,” Jotipala said, standing beside Duncan.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Duncan said. “Every time I come here from America, it’s the same. I wake up early.” He choked back the complaint he had been about to voice, about being stuck here. Jotipala had nothing to do with it. “But this is a good place to be. I like to hear the sea.”
“It is inside my heart,” Jotipala said. “My whole life I have lived by the sea. I know its moods. Every day, it is different, but underneath, it is always the same.”
He sat down on the boulder next to Duncan, and they sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Sir thinks deeply.”
“I was thinking about what it would be like to have a child,” Duncan said.
“They bring light into life,” Jotipala said. After a pause, he said, “Why does sir not have children?”
I wish I knew, Duncan thought. “Who knows the answer to that? Luck maybe.”
“The time has to be right,” Jotipala said. “The planets have to be aligned properly. And the spirits must be appeased.”
Duncan thought of saying that he had not grown up with those ideas, but that could have seemed disrespectful. “My wife . . . she doesn’t believe in all that,” he said. “Even though she is Sinhalese.”
Jotipala’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “Sir’s wife is Sinhalese?”
“Yes.” Duncan fished his new work phone out of his pocket. Since leaving New Jersey, its only use had been as a camera. He opened its photo album to find the selfie he’d taken with Grace the morning he’d left home.
“That madam I know,” Jotipala said.
Duncan, surprised, flipped back to the picture he had indicated. It was the one he had downloaded from the email Grace had sent, the picture with the mask that had captivated Mo for some reason.
He pointed to Angie. “You know her?” Angie had gone to school in Kandy after all. He wondered how often she had visited Sri Lanka after leaving high school. It wasn’t unlikely that she might have visited Galle. Could she have met Jotipala through Bent?
But Jotipala pointed to Angie’s companion. “No, this other madam,” he said.
“This one? How do you know her?”
“This madam stayed here. It was not recently. Maybe a year ago. I remember her well. She asked me a lot of questions, but not directly. She could not speak Sinhala. There was a Sinhalese sir who asked me her English questions in Sinhala.”
“She was asking about the ceremonies?”
Jotipala shook his head. He didn’t seem pleased about his interactions with the woman. “Once or twice, about bali thovil, yak thovil. But what she was most interested in was hooniyam.”
“True?” Duncan said. Now he understood why Jotipala seemed displeased about the woman’s questions. Most village people didn’t want to associate themselves with black magic rituals. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her what I told all of them,” Jotipala said.
“All of them?”
“All the madams and sirs who came here to learn about hooniyam.”
“There were others? Foreigners?”
“Five or six,” Jotipala said. “I don’t know from where. America, I think. Some of them came together. I told them I didn’t know much about hooniyam. But Fernando Sir said I had to find some kattadiyas for them to
talk to. I found them two kattadiyas. One was in Henegama and the other one was in Walpola.”
“They went to talk to the kattadiyas?”
Jotipala nodded. “The car took them. Many times. I told them I didn’t want to go.”
“Why did they want to . . . They wanted to get hooniyam done?”
“I don’t know what they wanted. They asked me too many questions. In the beginning, I didn’t even want to tell them about the incidents I knew about. But Fernando Sir said I had to tell them everything I know. They wrote down what I said. They wanted to know all the details about the incidents I knew about. What the kattadiya had done. Did the victims know they had been enchanted. What happened to the victims.” He shook his head again. “Not good to ask about these things.” He turned to Duncan, his eyebrows drawn together. “Sir is interested in hooniyam also?”
“No, no,” Duncan said. “I am only interested in thovil.”
Jotipala looked again at the picture on Duncan’s phone. “This mask,” he said. “Where is this?”
Duncan sighed. “In my office building,” he said. “I know it should not be on the wall. People there don’t understand what masks are for. They only put the mask there because . . . because it is interesting.”
While they had been talking, the sky had lightened to gray. The water shimmered, a darker gray. The rocks below had come into view too, jagged black hulks awash in white foam. On the overlook, the ringed trunks of the coconut palms were visible, and their leaves, dark green against the gray sky, reminded him of a sari pattern.
“A good time to go out for a walk,” he said, to change the subject. “Out of the gate to the road. You can go with me if you’re afraid I won’t be safe.”
Jotipala rose to his feet. “I have to see to the garden,” he said.
“I’ll go then. I’ll be careful.” He didn’t even know what he had to be careful about, he thought. Besides, it was unlikely that anyone would be about at this hour.
“The guard won’t let sir go out,” Jotipala said, turning away. “He has a gun.”
“Maybe he won’t be there at this hour,” Duncan said.
“The guards come in shifts. When one leaves, another one comes,” Jotipala said. “They stay in the guardhouse.”
“Then he can come with me for protection,” Duncan said. “No one is going to be after me at this time anyway.”
Jotipala turned back toward him, and Duncan saw, for the first time, an apologetic look cross his face. “The lock on the gate, the guards . . . that is not to stop anyone from coming after sir,” he said. “They are to stop sir from going out.”
Duncan frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Forgive me, sir,” Jotipala said. “I am only doing my job. To keep sir here, that was what I was told.”
“Because someone could harm me or Janie?”
“No one is going to harm sir,” Jotipala said. “They are afraid sir will harm them.”
“What? What are you saying? Whom could I harm?”
“Aney, sir, I don’t know all that,” Jotipala said, backing away. “I only know what I overheard when the guard was talking on the phone. We have to make sure sir does not leave here. We were told to tell sir it was for sir’s protection.” He began to walk off, his head down.
Duncan climbed off the rock and ran behind him. He caught hold of Jotipala’s sinewy arm. “Wait, Jotipala,” he said. “I don’t understand. How can I harm anyone? Do you think I would harm anyone?”
“I don’t know, sir. I am just doing my job. If I lose my job, I will have no way to look after my family.” Jotipala pulled his arm away and backed down the path. “Forgive me, sir,” he said again. He turned and hurried away.
Duncan looked down at the water below, where obedient waves were traveling in orderly lines toward the beach. They came in bearing creamed sand, serving it up to the land like an offering, before slipping back into the sea. The sand they left behind shone like dark glass as the water drained away.
38
GRACE
In Transit
“No more sketching? Not easy to work on a long flight,” Ingmar Mankell said, his eyes on the grant application in Grace’s hand. “Discipline.” He said it approvingly. He had introduced himself earlier. He was an overweight middle-aged man, who, though friendly, was not careful about respecting Grace’s personal space. His right leg had been pressed against Grace’s for most of the flight, and his arm covered the armrest completely, forcing Grace to squeeze herself toward the center of her seat.
“I don’t really think I can,” Grace said. She had doodled desultorily for a while in the sketch pad she’d brought along, but her mind kept wandering to the conversations she’d had with Bent and Yak Adura. Those also intruded when she tried to sleep.
“You are returning from a visit to the United States?” Ingmar said.
“No, I live in the US. I’m going back to visit . . . my parents,” Grace said.
“Ah.” Ingmar eyed her wedding ring. “Leaving the husband at home?”
“He’s already in Sri Lanka,” she said, a little taken aback by his question. “On business.”
“What kind of business is he in?” Ingmar’s breath wafted toward her. She could smell something sour in it.
“Pharmaceuticals,” Grace said.
“Ah, a chemist.”
“Actually, he’s an anthropologist.” How strange it would sound if she explained that Duncan studied exorcism ceremonies, she thought. “He gave up an academic job . . . actually, he was laid off. Now he’s in marketing.”
“That’s what the drug companies do best,” Ingmar said. “Which company is your husband at?”
“Cinasat,” Grace said. A week ago, she would not have thought twice about telling a stranger where Duncan worked. Now, she wondered whether this was just a normal airplane conversation or if this man had some ulterior motive.
She stuck her grant application back in the seat pocket, excused herself, and closed her eyes, bringing the conversation, innocent or not, to an end.
39
DUNCAN
Monday
Janie, perky after a long night’s sleep, had eaten an early breakfast of coconut-milk rice and treacle, but Duncan had barely touched his food. He sipped the slightly gritty black percolated coffee Karuna had brought him, not knowing what to do with what he had learned that morning. If Jotipala were to be believed, he was a prisoner here. His mind was filled with questions, and he had no answers. Had Bent sent him here under false pretenses? But why? And why would he send Janie along? If Bent had not sent him here, who had? Perhaps this was not the safe place Bent had talked about after all. Had he been brought here by someone else? Whom? And again, why?
He could hear Janie jabbering in the bedroom, talking about her recorder and her Legos, apparently unconcerned that Karuna understood no English. Karuna, by the sound of her replies, was trying to comb the tangles out of Janie’s hair.
When Janie burst back into the dining room, her hair was combed and neatly braided. “Come on, Duncan!” she said, tugging at his shirtsleeve. “Can we go back to the beach now?” She looked up at Karuna, who was regarding her fondly. “Can you give us a pail?”
“She’s asking for a bucket, to play on the beach,” Duncan translated. “An empty biscuit tin would do.”
“I will find one and send it with Jotipala,” Karuna said, and disappeared through the back door.
On the portico, four crows had already gathered. Duncan wondered what drew them. There always seemed to be at least one there. They were oddly silent for crows.
Janie didn’t seem to have noticed them. “Let’s go, let’s go!” She whirled down the path to the overlook, where the temple guardian waited among the screw pine roots.
“Be careful there,” Duncan said, concern startling him out of his reverie. He reached out to hold her hand. They climbed carefully down the path to the beach.
Small waves were tiptoeing in to the shore, as if afraid to rouse the dark swel
ls that heaved like sleeping giants behind them. Duncan walked along the spongy, packed sand, Janie’s hand in his, their feet barely leaving any prints in the fine sand. A king coconut lay on the sand in one corner of the beach, its orange color a warning against the black rocks.
“Here comes the tin for the sandcastle,” Duncan said, spotting Jotipala descending the path.
Jotipala set down the tin, a rusted red one that had once held Cheesebits biscuits, on the sand, avoiding Duncan’s eyes.
“You have to help, Jotipala,” Janie said, tugging at his shirt as he turned away.
Jotipala hitched up his sarong and squatted on his haunches, smiling.
With only one tin, it took them a while to build a sandcastle. It was a precarious structure with a prehistoric air, its turrets just fist-size lumps of sand.
“I have to talk to my wife. I don’t want her to worry about where I am,” Duncan said. Jotipala continued the task Janie had assigned him, scooping handfuls of moist sand into the biscuit tin. Duncan was thankful for Janie’s inability to understand what was being said. “I don’t even know who sent us here. I thought it was my boss, this child’s father, but he would not have us imprisoned here. I have to at least talk to him, to find out. He may not even know we are here.”
Jotipala patted the sand into the tin, silent.
“I just need to make a phone call,” Duncan said.
Jotipala looked up. “There are no phones, sir,” he said.
“A cell phone then,” Duncan said.
“Cell phone does not work on this property,” Jotipala said.
“You said you heard the police guard talking to Mr. Fernando.”
“That was down at the beach road, at the shop,” Jotipala said. “On the phone there.”
“Then I have to go to the shop and make a call.”
“The guard will not let sir leave the compound.”
“You can talk to him,” Duncan said. “Tell him I am not going to harm anyone. I just need to go to the shop.”
Jotipala sighed. “He won’t listen to me. He is police. He will be sacked if he lets you leave. The same for me.”
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