by Roma Tearne
Sugi walked on, his mind darting backwards and forwards in a confusion of thoughts. He desperately wanted to get the girl to safety and return as quickly as he could. He wanted to get help, to find Theo. Dead or alive, he thought, I must find him. But first they must stop the train. If they missed it as it slowed down at the crossing there would not be another one until the morning. Her uncle, or his friends, anyone, might spot them later on.
‘I promised him I would get you out,’ he said again, in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘But I will find him.’
As they rounded the corner of the bay they heard the train hooting. The moon had disappeared as they scrambled up and across the dunes to a place where giant cacti grew beside a cluster of coconut trees. They were almost at the crossing now. The coast road, narrow and completely empty, stretched beside the railway line. Sugi was calling hoarsely to her, urging her to hurry for they were in an exposed and vulnerable position. At any moment the train could come thundering towards them, or an army convoy might appear. The moon reappeared, and at the same instant Sugi saw the signal was still green. He needed to get to the signal box beside the level crossing several minutes before the train reached the first bay if he was to stop it. He ran on the last hundred yards shouting to Nulani to keep off the track. His voice whipped across the breeze telling her to be careful. Hardly had he reached the barrier and lowered it, when the tracks began to vibrate. Instantly the lights changed and they heard the train beginning to slow down. In order to scramble on to the truck with the mail bags they needed to run back along the line to a point where they could board the train more easily. They had only a minute to do this. The headlights stretched across the tracks and the train roared into view, hissing and slowing down. It would not stop moving completely, Sugi, shouted again. She must wait until he told her to jump. They were crouching beside the giant cacti as the wheels screeched and the brakes locked. All of a sudden two army jeeps careered across the bend of the road and some figures stepped into the headlights of the train. Two men walked over to the crossing. Two more followed them. Out of the corner of his eye Sugi recognised one of them. He was shining a torch on the track, and under the wheels. The lights had not changed yet.
‘Now,’ hissed Sugi. ‘Jump! Now! Now!’
He pushed a small bag into her hands and in one swift movement she was up and over into the mail truck. The train began to move and as she turned in the darkness of the carriage to see where he was she heard a sharp volley of gunfire. Through the small gap left in the slats she could see Sugi. He had slipped down on to the tracks and had begun to run towards the beach. He zigzagged crazily, shouting at the men, waving his hands, drawing attention to himself. The men turned sharply and began to shoot at him even as the lights changed. The girl stood rooted to the spot, watching with horror, unaware that the train was moving, as they emptied a steady stream of bullets into Sugi, and in that moment she realised that one of the men was her uncle. The train began to gather speed and she saw that Sugi had given her the bag containing her passport and money, moments before he decided to distract her uncle from searching the train. And, as she watched through her blinding tears, as the train rattled noisily along the coast, she saw also that the dawn was beginning to appear faintly from the east, enduring and very beautiful.
At daybreak the seagulls returned with the fishermen trawling their catamarans. The night had been full of fish, silvery-stiff in death, and plentiful. Dragging their nets along the beach, they saw the body. It was completely unrecognisable, blackened and filled with holes, in its stomach, on its legs and what were once arms and face. When the fishermen’s gaze reached up to the head, they saw that grey substance had seeped out. In the early-morning light it spread like delicate fronds of coral on the sands. The sea began to edge around, nudging against it, foaming and darkly red. Overhead the seagulls screamed, circling in great wild swoops above the day’s catch, while the fishermen watched as Sugi’s body rocked gently on its journey out to sea.
9
ONLY AFTERWARDS DID THEY ASK THEMSELVES, why had they not been more prepared? Many days later, when she could think a little, Giulia had remembered, a knock on the door at that hour was never good. Knowing all they did, they should have seen how much there was to lose. Did they think they were exempt from loss? Did they think this war was meant for others than themselves? Somehow, thought Giulia in the small hours of the sleepless nights that followed, we should have been prepared. But they had not seen it, lurking in wait, ready to pounce, sweeping them along in the wave of insanity that characterised this civil war. Theo had rung them briefly earlier the day before. He had told them he had been at the airport but was safe now. He would ring them, he had said, in the morning. And soon he would bring the girl to visit them. There was something, he had told them, laughing excitedly, that he wanted to tell them. They had not heard him sound this way in years. Guessing his news, teasing him, they too had been glad. But Theo, they now realised with horror, had simply come home to die.
The girl stood at their door. She was etched palely against the moonlight, carved as though in sandstone, surrounded by the sounds of geckos and bullfrogs, and even in her grief her face remained beautiful. Why had this shocked them so much? Here was proof, they whispered, here was evidence of the fragility of life. She had found them by some miracle; she had come, because, she cried, there was nowhere else for her to go. Rohan was the quickest to understand. And he saw in a moment, reading Sugi’s hastily scribbled note, that it was all over. Finished.
‘Come back with me,’ Nulani had begged them. ‘Please! Quickly, come and talk to my uncle.’
But, Rohan asked, what about Sugi? Where was he?
And it was only then, with a voice barely above a whisper, that she had cried, ‘He’s dead.’ That was what she had said. ‘They killed him! I saw him die!’
Wanting to hide their shock, folding it up tightly, they had tried to tuck it out of sight; but it remained, untidily, visible. Forcing them to confront the unthinkable. Rohan, always the quickest, saw the girl still hoped Theo was alive. He saw she was still warm with the touch of him and would not unclasp herself from it. Sugi, it seemed, had known the only way to get her to Colombo was to let her believe this. Giulia sent the servant to fetch the doctor. The doctor had many contacts all over the island, he could make some enquiries in the morning, he promised. For now he sedated Nulani Mendis and together they reread Sugi’s note.
‘If I don’t contact you in a day, you must send her to safety. You mustn’t let them find her. It was what he wanted.’
Theo, they saw, had taken care of everything. There was a passport for the girl, money for a ticket, instructions in case of an emergency. They were stunned, fearful for her safety. The enormity of their task frightened them.
‘But how can we do this, Rohan?!’ Giulia said. ‘Theo might still be alive. He might be held captive somewhere. We can’t just send her away. It’s too big a decision for us.’
The sedative had begun to work; at last the girl’s eyes began to close. Their whispers were low and vaporous in the darkened room.
‘Keep her with you,’ the doctor murmured. ‘Don’t let her out. You don’t know what could happen. I’ll see what information I can find among my patients. Theo Samarajeeva was well known. But so, unfortunately, were his pro-Tamil views, he should not have come back to live here. It was such a foolish thing to do.’
‘This was his home,’ Rohan said angrily. ‘Where else should he have gone? He wrote the truth, about things we all believed in.’
‘Shh!’ Giulia said, glancing nervously at the girl.
They watched over her, listening to her breathing, thinking of their friend, knowing that at least while she slept, her pain was held in abeyance.
‘He should have lived in Colombo,’ the doctor said. ‘He might have had better protection here.’
‘It’s no good talking about what he should have done,’ said Rohan. ‘We need to find him now.’
The doctor shook hi
s head, sorrowfully. ‘I will see what I can do. But I have to say, in my experience…once they get into the hands of the army, there’s not much hope, you know.’
They fell silent then, their minds numbed as much by the lateness of the hour as the horror of what they were facing.
That had been three days ago. Three unimaginable days of watching Nulani Mendis’s descent into hell. On the evening of the third day the doctor returned. It was true, he said, what the girl had said was true. Someone, an unidentified man, had been shot on the beach, beside the level crossing. It must have been the manservant, the doctor supposed. And Theo Samarajeeva had indeed disappeared without trace. Local people had heard the sounds of a shoot-out, but had stayed indoors, not wanting to be mixed up in it. Someone had told him the man who was the girl’s uncle terrorised the town.
‘Better send her to the UK then,’ he said at last, into the silence. ‘At least she’ll be safe there. Get her out if you can.’
He smiled wearily, waiving his fee. Leaving them with some pills for her before stepping out once more into the night.
‘You know she won’t go, Rohan,’ Giulia murmured. ‘Can you see her leaving without him? She’ll never leave.’
‘She has a brother in England. We’ll have to tell her what the doctor said. She’ll have to know the truth, if she doesn’t already guess it. I think she does, I think in her heart she understands she’ll never see him again. So what is there for her to stay for, tell me? What is there for any of us here now?’ he asked.
Bitterness formed a crust over his words. Bitterness mixed with betrayal. Until now he had always loved his home.
Later Rohan went out, dodging the curfew, hurrying along the darkened alleyways of the city with the girl’s forged passport in his pocket. Somehow, using his contacts, he managed to get a seat on the last remaining flight out. It was on a plane that touched down briefly at the private airport reserved for short local flights. That the girl was Singhalese helped. That she had forged documents stating British citizenship also helped. Theo had thought of everything, it seemed. Everything except his own death. The flight was in the evening of the following day. She would fly to Chennai and change planes there.
But they had reckoned without her. Nulani Mendis did not want to go. Clinging to Giulia, desperate, refusing all sedatives, refusing food, her face swollen with tears, she refused to go. Today her mother was to be cremated, she told them piteously, how could she go? She begged them, and then she argued with them, screaming in a way they would not have believed possible. They began to fear for her sanity. She had come here, she said, believing they would help her. Believing Sugi would find Theo, that he would follow her to Colombo. That was why she came, she said. Didn’t they understand? How could they betray her in this way? She was going back, now. No one could stop her. She was going back to find him.
‘I don’t care what happens to me,’ she cried wildly. Anger overtook grief. Why had Sugi lied to her? she demanded. Why had he not told her that Theo was dead?
In the end it was left to Rohan to persuade her.
‘Nulani, listen,’ he said, stroking her hair, holding her as she struggled. ‘Sugi did the best he could. He was frightened. And he had to make a quick decision. He didn’t want you to die as well. It had been Theo’s last wish, should anything happen, that Sugi would get you out. Sugi was only keeping his promise. Please, Nulani, understand, he loved you both.’
She said nothing.
‘Theo always worried something like this might happen. He made emergency plans some months ago, you know. In his heart, I think he knew it wasn’t really safe here. If he was forced to leave he wanted to take you with him. Why else would he have got these travel documents for you? It wasn’t an easy matter getting a false passport. It took months of negotiation; it was a dangerous business. And he had an instinct, a sixth sense, you know. So that with him, or without him, he needed to be certain you would be safe. So you see, putha, you must go. For his sake you must. Even more so now your mother has died.’
She covered her ears, weeping.
‘It’s true,’ Rohan said. ‘While your mother was there you had some protection. Now you have none.’
He paused, shocked by what he was doing but determined nonetheless. She became silent.
‘Can’t you see, child?’ Rohan said more gently, as the storm of weeping showed no sign of abating. He felt the weight of what he had to do grow dark and rotten inside him. He was shocked to the core of his being by it, but still he continued. ‘Sugi only did what he believed Theo wanted. He paid a terrible price. But we will keep looking. We’ll never stop looking. And you know that if he is still alive, he’ll find you, somehow. You know that. So you see, you must go.’
She gave in then, the pointlessness of her struggle leaving her speechless for the second time in her life. And Giulia sitting beside her, holding her, thought, first her father and now this. How will she ever recover from this? But Rohan, having seen what he must do, did not waver. He kept talking; about Theo, and what she had meant to him, and the bleakness of his life after Anna had died, before he had met her.
‘We, none of us, could give him what you did, Nulani. You were a sort of gift. He told me, I promise you, the last time we spoke. He said it many times; you were the last gift in his life. Hold on to that. Like a coconut palm in the monsoon, you must bend with the wind.’
And, he thought, one day, many years from now, please God, you will paint away your grief. One day all this will find its way into your work. An orphan, Giulia thought, giving her the last of the sedatives, waiting with her until she slept the druginduced sleep of utter exhaustion.
‘I can’t stay in this place much longer,’ Rohan said finally, watching as she slept. He felt utterely desolate and alone, it seemed he had been fighting this war for ever. ‘We must go back to Europe. I can’t live with this savagery.’
Far away, in another life, were other seagulls sitting on the boat posts, the briccole, that marked out the waters of Giulia’s home. Now, overcome with longing she wanted to go back to them. She had been away for too long. Lately, even before recent events, the sickness in her husband’s country had begun to defeat her. She felt homesickness, never very far away, returning.
‘We are all she’s got, you know,’ Rohan was saying.
I can’t take any more, thought Giulia.
‘In Europe at least we will be able to keep an eye on her.’
‘There’s her brother too.’
‘Him! Well, I’m not so sure, you heard what…she will have no help there.’ Suddenly he felt he could no longer bear to say his friend’s name out loud.
The girl lay drugged and inert, watched over by them. Twice during that night the telephone rang, slicing into the silence, but when Rohan answered it, no one was there. The drive to the airport skirted the jungle on a road that had been ambushed many times. Their car was old, there were no street lights and they would have to leave well before the curfew. But what if they broke down, on that lonely stretch of road, what if the plane was delayed or her passport did not hold up to scrutiny? What if someone knowing her connection with Theo saw them? Anything was possible.
‘This was done because of his books,’ Rohan said, at last. They had hardly slept, hardly eaten. Both of them were beyond weeping. ‘And the film, of course. That couldn’t have helped. They had warned him, you know. He told me this when they visited. He knew they had wanted him for a long time, but he took no notice.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Giulia. ‘He had everything to live for, everything to be careful for. Why did he take so many risks?’
‘A man has to survive, Giulia. You cannot expect a man to skulk in fear of everything, especially a man such as Theo.’
Giulia was silent. Truly, she thought, it was time they went back to Europe. Rohan had not been Theo’s friend for nothing. He could not skulk either; now less so than ever. And Giulia was afraid.
The cremation of Mrs Mendis, unlike that of her husband, w
ent according to plan. Her brothers, who had shown no interest in her welfare since her marriage, turned up in full force. They sat, all together, with their wives, their children, the neighbours, the schoolteacher, the Buddhist monks and the Catholic priests in the seldom used sitting room. There were so many of them that they spilled out on to the veranda and down the steps into the garden. The servant had so much work that someone had paid for extra help. The woman Thercy, from Sumaner House, helped the servant. Mrs Mendis, in her white sari and the jacket that her daughter had embroidered long ago, was lying in her coffin for all to see. She was surrounded by flowers. There was a wreath from her son with love to his amma. The boy could not get back for his mother’s funeral. Everyone understood that. What with the airport closed because of the bastard Tamils and poor Jim’s poverty, he was forced to stay away. It was a tragedy. But he had sent flowers, said the aunts and the cousins, he had hardly any money but he had sent flowers. What a loving son. How proud Mrs Mendis had been of him. How lucky she had been with her son Jim. One of the uncles took a photograph of everyone around the open coffin, standing close, as though it was a giant birthday cake, surrounded by flowers and candles. The difference with this party was their faces were sad. Another difference was the marked absence of Nulani Mendis.