As Malini explained, almost in a whisper, Nanda nodded her head rapidly in agreement. Nanda’s hands were trembling. She knew better than Malini what soldiers were capable of, both the SLA and the Tigers. Each night, she would wake at the slightest sound with her heart racing. At the orphanage, one of the soldiers without uniforms had held her by the hair while another soldier had pushed Master onto the ground and fired at him where he lay. He had kept firing even after he knew Master was dead. Nanda had not told Malini what she had been forced to watch.
Hiding in the forest after the massacre at the orphanage, she had been waiting for the blow that would kill her. Where it would come from she didn’t know, but it would kill her. Instead, through a curtain of rain, she had glimpsed Malini beneath a satinwood tree. If Malini and Banni were taken by the soldiers, Nanda would not go on to the village of Ulla Alakana. She would remain where she was with the boys, and die.
Malini and Banni left for the town when it was dark, keeping to the fringe of the forest but within sight of the highway. Just as it had been during the day, most of the traffic was heading north towards the coast. When the trucks roared past with SLA soldiers in the back, Malini and Banni crouched down low and barely drew a breath. The soldiers were singing at the tops of their voices. They knew that their side was about to claim victory. Malini grieved to hear the singing, as if the war had been nothing but a huge party with fireworks and games and prizes for the winner.
Malini saw the silhouette of buildings in the distance, but very few lights. She told Banni, ‘If we meet anyone, I will talk.’ A dirt road branched off the highway close to the town, with the houses of small landholders on both sides. The symbols above the doorways of Hindu deities showed that this was a Tamil part of the town. The houses were all unlit, as if the residents wanted to keep to themselves, to hide.
The sisters walked quickly, with their heads bowed. Some sort of noisy gathering was taking place in the centre of the town, perhaps a victory celebration. They came to the market, but it was dark and deserted, the stalls all locked up. In a town of this size, a night market would normally stay open until eleven. In the centre of the market a Hindu shrine stood beneath a tree, but the figure of Shiva was not draped with garlands of flowers, as it should be.
An old Tamil woman came shuffling through the deserted market with a basket of bay leaves on her back, but she didn’t greet them. Then they saw a sadhu on the other side of the market, standing as still as a statue with his staff in his hand. His white beard reached down to his waist. Malini approached him, hoping to ask if a guesthouse was nearby. It was only when she was right in from of him with her hands clasped that she saw tears running down his cheeks. He did not seem to see her; his gaze fixed on some place far away.
She said, ‘I honour you, sir,’ and left him to his grief.
Malini and Banni skirted the noisy celebration in the middle of the town and hurried along the empty streets, always staying in the shadows. Down one narrow lane that led back to the celebration, Malini glimpsed soldiers with their arms around each other’s shoulders, heads raised to the stars as they bellowed out the words of what Malini recognised as a football song.
Now they were in a ghost town. Not a person to be seen, the only sounds the distant bellowing of the soldiers and occasional volleys of gunfire from the middle of town. They hurried past Tamil shops with their metal roller doors closed and padlocked. Banni saw a sign with an arrow pointing towards the Golden Sunshine Magnificent Guesthouse. When they found the guesthouse – a ramshackle building with a balcony on the first level – it looked anything but golden and magnificent. A small light burned in the office.
Malini pulled her scarf further forward, so that her face was in shadow. She mounted the three steps to the lobby with Banni, pushed against the door and found it locked. Malini tapped on the glass pane of the door, hoping to attract the attention of a man asleep at the reception desk.
The tapping didn’t rouse him.
She found a pull cord and tugged at the handle. A bell sounded inside, but still the man remained asleep.
She tugged again and again. Finally the man awoke. He rubbed his face with his hands, yawned mightily, then shuffled to the door.
‘Go away,’ he said. ‘Curfew!’
‘Please,’ said Malini. ‘Do you have any rooms?’
The man pulled down a blind on his side of the door.
‘Please, sir, we have money to pay,’ Malini called. His departing footsteps announced the ruin of their plan.
Malini searched in vain down every dark street they could find for a guesthouse that would admit them. Malini wasn’t able to find anyone who would even speak to her. As tiredness and despair set in, they lost their way. They rounded a corner from a lane and walked straight into a patrol of two government soldiers. Both soldiers lifted their rifles and pointed them at Malini and Banni.
‘We are on our way home,’ Malini said, in Sinhala. Her voice was steady, despite her dread.
‘This little fool speaks our tongue,’ one soldier said. A pink birthmark shaped like a banana reached from the corner of his left eye down to his upper lip. ‘Where did you learn Sinhala, little fool?’
‘In my school, sir,’ said Malini.
‘Don’t give me that,’ the soldier said. ‘What Tamil school would teach Sinhala? I think you’re a liar, little fool. You are a liar, aren’t you?’
The other soldier had stepped forward and was feeling the silk of Malini’s scarf between his fingers. She pushed his hand away.
‘Please may we go?’ she said.
‘Oh, you can go all right,’ said the first soldier. ‘It’s just a matter of where you go.’
He reached out and felt Malini’s hair. He may have had something more to say, something cruel and clever, except that Banni grabbed his hand from her sister’s hair and bit down hard. The soldier screamed; Banni held on like a bulldog. Malini swung her elbow into the stomach of the second soldier, and by good fortune caught him so unaware – he may also have been drunk – that he doubled over. Malini grabbed a handful of Banni’s blouse, wrenched her free and together they raced back down the lane. Malini heard the rapid chatter of a rifle and the whining echo of bullets, but she kept running, only just keeping up with Banni. They had no plan; they simply turned whenever they came to an intersection. Malini couldn’t tell if the soldiers were still following. She stopped to listen and heard nothing, but Banni cried out, ‘There!’ as the soldiers burst from an alley.
Malini shrieked and took off again, Banni beside her. Now they were in a cul-de-sac with two-storey houses rearing on either side, protected from the street by tall walls. The only way out was back in the direction of the soldiers. The sisters pressed themselves against a high wooden gate, hoping that they wouldn’t be visible. At the mouth of the cul-de-sac they could see the soldiers deliberating. One called out, ‘Where are you, little fool? We won’t hurt you! We only want to cut your pretty throat!’
The soldiers advanced down the street, their rifles held at fire-ready positions. Malini whispered rapidly, ‘Appa, Amma, please pardon me for failing you. Please, Lord Shiva, help us now if you love us.’
Suddenly the wooden gate swung open and a voice hissed, ‘Come in! Be quick!’
Malini and Banni did what they were told. The gate closed behind them.
They were in a garden, the dark forms of trees rearing around them. A shadow in the shape of a girl – the source of the whisper – closed the gate quietly, then gestured for Malini and Banni to follow her up four steps to the veranda of a very grand house, then around to one side.
‘Wait here,’ said the girl. ‘You will be safe. You have my promise.’
She vanished down a laneway that ran along the side of the house. Malini and Banni heard a door open and close. Then nothing for long minutes except the sound of music coming from inside the house, and the shouts of the two soldiers out on the street.
‘Little fool, where are you? Don’t worry, we will kill you quic
kly! You and that little tiger!’
‘Is this a trap?’ Banni whispered.
Malini said, ‘I don’t think so. She could have left us to the soldiers if she’d wished to.’
‘Did you see me bite banana face?’
‘Shush, now.’
The girl returned, carrying what looked like textbooks. Malini noticed that she wore glasses. The girl held a finger to her lips. ‘Just follow,’ she said. ‘Say nothing.’
Malini and Banni kept close to the girl as they crept up the laneway to a garden at the rear of the house. The girl motioned for Malini and Banni to wait while she opened the door to a small bungalow with a key. She stepped inside, beckoned to the sisters, then closed the door behind them. The girl then struck a match and lit an oil lamp, adjusting the flame carefully until it burned low.
In the golden glow of the lamp, the girl was fully revealed for the first time. Malini thought she looked around her own age, with long hair taken up on top and held loosely with a clasp. She wore stylish slacks and a cream-coloured blouse that may have been silk. Her glasses had narrow black frames and gave her a scholarly look, but she was also very assured and charming. She was the loveliest girl that Malini had ever seen, and in her grubby sari Malini felt as if she’d crawled out of a drainpipe.
The girl gestured, inviting them to sit on the rug-covered sofa along one wall. ‘Please.’
She herself sat on a four-legged stool with a rush seat, facing the sisters. The textbooks she had brought with her sat on the floor beside the stool. ‘Will I speak Tamil?’ she asked, in Tamil.
‘Or Sinhala,’ said Malini, ‘or English.’
‘Really?’
Malini wanted to say, ‘I am educated,’ but she kept quiet.
‘I am Randevee,’ the girl said in English. ‘I am sorry for your ordeal. The soldiers are barbarians. Will you drink some guava juice? I have some here.’
Malini said, ‘Thank you. That would be very welcome.’ She was trying to sound as courteous as she possibly could.
While Randevee poured juice from a decanter into two tall glasses, Banni asked Malini in a whisper what a barbarian was.
Malini whispered back, ‘A wild person. Like you.’
‘I was in the garden when I heard the soldiers chasing you,’ said Randevee. She leaned forward on the stool as she spoke, clasped hands resting on her knees. ‘I heard you scream.’
‘It was our good fortune to meet you, Miss Randevee,’ said Malini. ‘I am Malini, and this is my sister, Banni.’
Banni glanced up at her sister to see if she should say anything. Malini nodded.
‘Very pleased meeting you today,’ Banni said in English, not getting it quite right.
‘We are not from the town,’ said Malini. ‘We are from far off, close to the coast.’
‘And how is it that you are here in this dangerous place? This town is half Sinhalese, half Tamil. But it is only your Tamil people who are suffering now.’
Malini had every reason to feel she could trust Randevee, and yet she had to overcome a stubborn reluctance to speak openly and honestly with a Sinhalese. It had been different with Nanda and the boys – they had come into her life in a way that made it impossible to think of them as anything other than victims. But Randevee lived a privileged life, to judge from the big house, her stylish clothing and her poise, and age-old enmities that Malini did not even believe in – that she hated, in fact – made her pause before she spoke up.
Randevee seemed to notice Malini’s wariness. She said, ‘But first, shall I tell you about myself?’ She was home from school in Colombo for term break. Her parents had wanted her to stay away from the town during this dreadful time, but she had insisted on coming home.
‘My father owns tourist resorts all over Sri Lanka,’ she said. ‘Ten altogether. One in the hills close to us here. And we have three houses in Sri Lanka, counting this one.’ Randevee gestured towards the huge house. ‘But this is my father’s favourite because he came from this town when he was young and poor. I have two brothers, much older than me. One in Colombo, one in India. They are both businessmen. I am sorry to say that I argue with my father all the time. I tell him, We have too much. It is wrong. He supports the government and thinks the war is necessary. Did you hear the music in the house? My father is holding a party to celebrate the victory of the government. I will tell you what I think of the war. It is a disaster for our country. A horrible disaster.’
Malini agreed. ‘I think so, too.’
‘Do you know what I was doing in the garden? I was looking at the stars and thinking, up there is beauty, but down here is ugliness. When I go to university, I want to do something that will bring beauty back to our island. I’m going to be a doctor. I will go where the poor people are and give them free medicine.’
This sounded a bit pie-in-the-sky to Malini – she wondered whether Randevee had ever actually met any ‘poor people’. But what she felt even more strongly was something like envy. To go to university – that was Malini’s great dream.
‘To Colombo University?’ said Malini.
‘Oh, no,’ said Randevee. ‘To Cambridge University in England. My name is down in the Department of Medicine.’
Malini closed her eyes for a moment as a wave of longing swept over her. Cambridge University! She had seen pictures of the famous colleges in books. Oh, if she could go to Cambridge and study mathematics, that would be paradise. But Cambridge, or any university, was so far in the future, further than ever, and Malini, with a great effort of will, shut her mind to such daydreams. She said softly to Randevee, ‘How lucky you are.’
Then Randevee said, ‘If you are not from around here, where are you from? And what has brought you to my town, if I may ask?’
Malini was unsure how much she should tell Randevee. The girl’s eyes were so clear, her gaze so candid, but there was something else there, too: something that Malini could not quite grasp.
Nevertheless, she told Randevee everything, from her escape with Banni into the forest, to meeting Nanda and the boys, the encounter with Kandan, and of course, their destination: the village of Ulla Alakana.
‘I have not heard of Ulla Alakana,’ said Randevee. ‘It must be far.’
Malini said, ‘Not too far, I hope.’ Then she said, ‘Randevee, when we parted from my father, he gave me his mobile phone so that we might make contact. But I must recharge the battery. Is it possible I could do that here?’
‘Certainly,’ said Randevee. ‘But I must tell you, Malini, that the mobile signal here disappears for days at a time.’ And she added, in English, ‘Alas.’
Malini had been keeping one eye on an electrical socket in the wall behind Randevee even while she told her story, and now she slipped the mobile and the recharger from inside her sari and quickly attached them to the power source. She waited for the blank screen to register that the phone was charging, then with great relief resumed her seat on the sofa.
Banni whispered, ‘Two people are coming. Men.’
Randevee said, ‘Don’t worry.’
She opened one of the textbooks she’d brought with her, and when a knock came at the door, calmly stood and called, in Sinhala, ‘Who is it?’
A voice called back, ‘Security, miss.’
Malini flinched; Banni, as if preparing for a fight, lifted two small fists.
Randevee opened the door just a little. ‘What is your business?’ she asked.
‘Your father wants you in the house,’ a man’s voice replied. A second voice added, ‘Tamil devils are making trouble in the town.’
‘I am doing homework,’ said Randevee. ‘I need peace and quiet.’
‘You must come now, miss.’
‘I will come in a minute. Go your way.’
She closed the door. They heard the security men departing, after some hesitation.
‘I will go, then come back,’ said Randevee. ‘I’ll be half an hour. You stay here.’ She took Malini’s hand. Her face was glowing with excitement. ‘Don�
�t be afraid,’ she said. ‘By good fortune, you have come to the right place.’
Malini and Banni spent the first fifteen minutes before Randevee’s return crouched over the mobile phone, watching the recharge light flashing. ‘Imagine, Banni,’ whispered Malini, ‘a little longer and the phone will be charged. Then when we find a signal, maybe there will be a call or a message from Appa!’
‘I’ll speak to him first,’ said Banni, ‘and to Amma. I won’t tell them you’ve been bossy, don’t worry.’
‘So kind of you,’ said Malini.
The sisters looked around the bungalow. It appeared to be accommodation for guests. There was a pile of folded white towels in the bathroom. Everything was spotlessly clean and fresh. Malini looked longingly at the double bed with its big plush pillows, thinking of the luxury of a few minutes’ comfortable rest. The tall space-age refrigerator in the kitchen was twice the size of the one in Malini’s house. A painting of the Buddha sitting cross-legged beneath his Bodhi tree hung on a wall in the living room. The Buddha held up one hand with the palm facing out – a gesture of peace. A small statuette of Dancing Krishna sat on a sideboard nearby. It was not uncommon for households in this region to display both Buddhist and Hindu icons, as Malini knew. In times past, the two faiths had often enjoyed each other’s company. But almost all households had opted for displaying the symbols of just one faith during the years of civil war. Why not in this household, Malini wondered, when Randevee’s father so strongly supported the government side?
Randevee returned after half an hour, struggling into the bungalow with a red suitcase. She closed the door behind her, listened for a minute, then swung the suitcase up onto the sofa. ‘I have everything here!’ she said. She was in a state of high excitement, almost gleeful. She opened the two clasps that kept the suitcase shut and displayed the contents.
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