by Martin Suter
‘But we’ve been earning good money. You must have put enough away for a fortnight.’
It was in response to this that Maravan disclosed his situation.
Both women listened in silence. Eventually Andrea said, ‘That means you’re being blackmailed.’
‘Not just that. They’re helping me as well.’
‘How?’
Maravan told them about Ugalu. How he had signed up to be a Black Tiger and how the two men had stopped him from being accepted.
‘And you believe them?’ Makeda asked.
He did not reply.
‘I wouldn’t trust anyone who sends children to war.’
Maravan still said nothing.
‘Men,’ Makeda said, sticking her fingers down her throat. ‘Sorry, Maravan. Men and war and money. Makes me sick.’
Andrea took her cue. ‘And yet you spend all night with a man whose business contacts are flogging arms to the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lankan army.’
Makeda stood up without saying a word and left the room. Andrea stayed seated defiantly.
‘Dalmann?’ Maravan asked after a while.
‘Of course.’
‘He’s involved with the Pakistani, too?’
Andrea nodded. ‘You too. You cooked for him.’
‘In St Moritz.’ It did not sound like a question. It was the confirmation of an unpleasant suspicion. ‘But I didn’t know.’
‘Now you do. And so does Makeda. So what now?’
‘I won’t cook for him any more.’
‘OK. What else?’
Makeda had come back into the room unnoticed. She was wearing her coat, scarf and gloves.
‘What about you?’ Andrea asked. ‘What are you going to do with Dalmann now?’
‘Just wait.’ She kissed Andrea on the cheek, patted Maravan’s head and left.
45
A cold and stormy night, rain mixed with snow. It was a five-minute walk to the tram stop. Maravan had put his hands deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, pulled his woolly hat down and hunched his shoulders.
So it was true. Dalmann was involved with people supplying arms to the army and the Liberation Tigers. Why would he have anything to do with them if he was not caught up in their deals? Sandana was right: the money he was sending his family may have been coming from the profits made by someone helping Maravan’s compatriots to kill each other. And the money he sent the LTTE possibly came from the LTTE, who in turn were getting it from people like Maravan.
Everything was churning around inside his head. He had reached the tram stop, but he continued walking. The idea of sitting in a tram now, as if nothing were wrong, put him into a panic.
There was nobody on the streets. Cars drove past at long intervals. The houses were dark with closed shutters and curtains. Maravan walked quickly with long, sweeping strides. Like a criminal on the run, he thought. And he felt like one, too.
It took him almost an hour to get home, soaked through and out of breath. He lit his oil burner, put on a sarong and fresh shirt, rang the temple bell and did his puja.
When he had finished he knew what he had to do. The very next day he would go to Andrea and resign. It was not enough just to refuse to work for Dalmann. There were many Dalmanns in such circles. If he wanted to be sure of not getting his hands dirty he had to end it.
He would tell Thevaram and Rathinam he needed his unemployment benefit again because he was giving up his catering service with immediate effect.
It was past one o’clock in the morning, but Maravan was too unsettled to go to bed. He turned on the computer and started accessing the websites covering the civil war.
The LTTE had declared a unilateral ceasefire. The Sri Lankan defence minister called this ‘a joke’. ‘They should give themselves up,’ he said. ‘They’re not fighting us, they’re running away from us.’
The defence ministry website had put up a ‘Final Countdown’, so you could see how many square kilometres the Liberation Tigers still had to go. And the thousands of refugees packed in tightly with them. The figure was not even thirty.
One of the pro-government websites published a photo as proof that the LTTE had reneged on their promise and were still recruiting child soldiers. Two soldiers were standing in the luxuriant green of monsoon vegetation. They wore camouflage gear, had assault rifles slung over their shoulders and stared impassively at the camera. Palms and banana plants formed a dense wall in the background. A path had been cut straight through it. Tank tracks had ploughed up the soft ground.
At the soldiers’ feet the bodies of four boys were leaning against an overturned tree trunk. Their heads were slumped on their shoulders as if they had nodded off. Their combat gear was of a slightly different pattern from that of the soldiers.
Maravan enlarged the picture. He let out a loud moan.
Ulagu was one of the four.
Maravan spent the rest of the night in front of his domestic shrine, praying, meditating and dozing. At half past four he sat at his monitor and dialled the number of the shop in Jaffna. It was eight o’clock there now, it would be open.
He kept on getting the message that all lines were busy and that he should try again later. After half an hour the shopkeeper answered.
Maravan asked him to send for his sister. The man would not agree until Maravan had promised him a 5,000-rupee tip when he next sent money. He should call back in two hours, he said.
They were two hours of torture. He kept on picturing Ulagu in his mind. As a frightened little boy who always needed a bit of time before he would trust somebody. As a serious young lad who never wanted to play or muck around, but just wanted to know everything about cooking. He had only ever seen Ulagu laughing when he had managed to do something difficult, while preparing food or cooking. Or when he tried something and it tasted just right.
Maravan had never met a child like Ulagu, who knew exactly what he wanted to be at such an early age – and was so convinced he would become it one day.
Precisely two hours later he rang again. The shopkeeper answered and put his sister on immediately.
‘Ragini?’
‘Yes,’ she said in a muffled voice.
‘Ragini,’ he sobbed.
‘Maravan,’ she sobbed.
They wept together at a distance of 8,000 kilometres, to the static accompaniment of the World Wide Web.
46
Andrea caught up with Makeda that evening and persuaded her to come back. Maravan had already left, and they had made up. But this morning they had already started bickering again.
Andrea had made breakfast in bed and, when they had got all nice and cosy, said, ‘From now on the name Dalmann is taboo, OK?’
Makeda smiled and replied, ‘It’s not that easy. He wants a Love Menu.’
Andrea looked at her, aghast.
‘I hope you told him there’s no way that’s going to happen.’
‘No, I didn’t. It all goes through Kull, you know that.’
‘Then I’ll tell Kull.’ Andrea had put her half-eaten croissant onto the plate and crossed her arms.
Makeda continued to eat calmly. ‘He’s not going to accept it just like that. Dalmann’s an important client, he says. An important go-between for other clients.’
‘And I’m an important service provider.’
Makeda put an arm around her. ‘Come on, babe, don’t be so unprofessional. He won’t manage it, despite all Maravan’s artistry.’
‘But he’ll have a go,’ Andrea sulked.
‘Hopefully,’ Makeda said determinedly.
‘What do you expect to happen?’
‘That he kicks the bucket in the middle of it.’
Andrea looked at her girlfriend in horror. Makeda laughed and gave her a kiss.
At that moment the doorbell rang.
‘I’m not expecting anyone.’ Andrea made no move to get up.
It rang again. And again. Andrea got up in fury. She threw on her kimono and stomped to the door. ‘Y
es?’ she barked into the intercom.
‘It’s me, Maravan.’ He was already at the door to her flat. She opened it and let him in.
‘What do you look like?’
Maravan’s hair was dishevelled. He was unshaven, which, for him, meant it looked as if he had a three-day beard. Dark shadows hung below his eyes and his expression had changed. Something had been extinguished.
‘What’s happened?’
Instead of answering he just shook his head. ‘I’m stopping,’ he spluttered.
She knew exactly what he meant, but still asked, ‘What do you mean, you’re stopping?’
‘From now on I won’t be cooking for Love Food any more.’
Makeda was now standing at the bedroom door. She had wrapped a sheet around her and was smoking.
‘Your nephew?’ she asked.
He sunk his head.
Makeda went up to him and took him in her arms. Andrea saw his shoulders begin to twitch. The twitching spread to his back as well. Suddenly a sound burst out from his chest. A high-pitched, plaintive, drawn-out sound that seemed at odds with this tall, quiet man.
Now Makeda’s expression crumpled too. Her eyes filled with tears and she buried her weeping face in his shoulder.
An hour later Maravan had calmed down enough for them to allow him to leave.
‘We’ll speak about stopping another time,’ Andrea said at her front door.
‘There’s nothing more to say.’
‘At least that solves the Dalmann problem,’ Makeda remarked.
‘What problem?’
‘Dalmann wanted a Love Menu,’ Andrea explained, ‘with Makeda. At his house.’
Maravan left. But on the landing he turned round again and came back. ‘After Dalmann, I’m stopping.’
47
‘If someone meets an unnatural death, their restless soul has no peace and forever haunts our world as a ghost.’
‘Do you believe that?’ Sandana asked.
They had arrived at the highest point in the city reachable by tram and from there gone for a walk in the nearby woods. It was cold and there was snow at 800 metres. Maravan had hoped to find snow, because ever since his winter walk in the Engadin Valley he would sometimes long for that white silence. But everything was green or brown. It was only when the wind tore open the high layer of fog that he caught a glimpse of the shimmering white hills and woods.
‘That’s what I was taught. I never doubted our religion. I don’t know anybody who does.’
‘I do. If you grow up here you learn to have your doubts.’
With her quilted coat Sandana was wearing a pink woolly hat pulled down tight over her head. It made her look like a child. This impression was reinforced by the fact that, despite the seriousness of the subject they were discussing, she kept on opening her mouth wide to exhale, gazing in fascination at the cloud of steam.
Maravan thought about it. ‘Must be difficult.’
‘Having doubts?’
He nodded.
‘Believing isn’t easy either.’
An elderly couple were coming the other way. The woman had been nagging the man, but now went quiet. Maravan and Sandana interrupted their conversation as well. As they passed each other, all four of them said ‘Grüezi’, according to the unwritten law of forest walkers.
They came to a fork. Without wavering Maravan plumped for the path that went upwards, towards the snow.
They continued walking at the same pace. The effort increased the gaps, first between sentences, then between individual words.
‘Everyone says the war will be over soon.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ Maravan sighed.
‘Lost,’ she added.
‘But over at least.’
‘Will you go back?’
Maravan stopped. ‘In the past I was sure I would. But now, without Nangay and Ulagu . . . What about you?’
‘Back? I’m from here.’
The path led to a clearing, curving slightly. When they reached the middle, they suddenly saw a deer on the path. Terrified, it turned its head towards them, then ran away. It stopped, absolutely still, at the highest point of the slope and looked down at them.
‘Ulagu, maybe,’ Sandana said.
He looked at her in astonishment and saw she was smiling. He put his hands together in front of his face and bowed towards the deer. Sandana copied him.
Snow was now starting to fall from the white sky above the clearing.
April 2009
48
Some of the time-consuming things on the menu were easily prepared the day before. The erotic confectionery, for example, kept well in the fridge. Or the urad ribbons which needed time to dry and jellify. The essences from the rotary evaporator also kept well in closed, airtight jars.
Maravan was in the middle of these preparations when the doorbell rang. He opened the door. Makeda stood in the semidarkness of the hallway, tall and smiling.
‘Don’t look so terrified. Nobody saw me, apart from your neighbour on the second floor.’
‘That’s more than enough,’ he said, letting her in.
She took off her coat to reveal a traditional Ethiopian dress. ‘Suits this area better, I thought.’
‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘I’d love some of your white tea – I don’t imagine you’ve got any champagne in the house.’
He nodded, although this was not what he had meant, and he wondered if she had really misunderstood him. She followed him into the kitchen.
She glanced at the confectionery in various stages of completion. ‘For Dalmann and me?’
Maravan nodded and filled the tea-maker with water.
‘May I?’ She pointed to one of the chick pea, ginger and pepper pussies yet to be glazed.
‘Only one. I’ve made just enough.’ He took two cups and saucers from a cupboard and put them on a tray.
Makeda grabbed one and bit off a piece.
The water was boiling. He poured out the tea and carried the tray into his small sitting room.
The deepam was burning by his domestic shrine and just for once the aroma of sandalwood was in the air. As a sacrifice to accompany his last prayer, Maravan had offered up smoke. In front of the shrine was the photo with the dead child soldiers. Makeda looked at it while Maravan set the table for the tea.
‘Which one is he?’
Maravan did not look up. ‘The first on the left.’
‘A child.’
‘He wanted to be a chef. Like me.’
‘I bet he would have been a good one.’
‘Definitely.’ Maravan looked at the photograph. ‘It’s just so unfair,’ he said, his voice faltering.
Makeda nodded. ‘I had a cousin. She wanted to become a nurse. She was recruited when she was ten, and instead of caring for people and making them better she had to learn how to maim and kill people with a Kalashnikov. She didn’t live to see her twelfth birthday.’
Now Makeda’s voice was faltering too. Maravan put a hand on her shoulder.
‘To a free Eritrea.’ She wanted to laugh, but it sounded more like a sob.
They sat down. Both sipped carefully at the tea, which was still far too hot.
Makeda put down her cup and said. ‘It’s people like Dalmann who have these children on their conscience.’
Maravan shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘No. It’s the people who instigate these wars.’
‘Those are the ideologues. They’re pretty bad, too. But not as bad as the suppliers. Who make wars possible in the first place by supplying the weapons. Who make money from the war, thereby prolonging it. People like Dalmann.’
Maravan waved his hand dismissively. ‘Dalmann’s a small fish.’
Makeda nodded. ‘Yes, but he’s our small fish.’
Maravan said nothing.
After a long silence, Makeda said insistently, ‘He stands for all the others.’
Maravan still said nothing.
‘You said you want
ed to stop. So why are you doing this dinner? This one in particular?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You’re planning something, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know. What about you? Why are you doing it?’
‘I know.’
Outside a police car siren became loud and then slowly quiet again.
‘Dalmann’s got a heart condition,’ she said.
‘Something bad I hope.’
Makeda smiled. ‘He had a heart attack. They’ve inserted a little tube into a coronary vessel. Now he has to keep on lowering his blood pressure and thin his blood or he’ll have another one.’
Maravan did not reply and blew on his tea.
‘Do you know where he had it?’
Maravan shook his head.
Makeda let out her happy-go-lucky laugh, but it sounded a bit forced. ‘In the Huwyler. At the busiest time.’
No reaction from Maravan.
‘He needs to look after himself. Mustn’t strain anything. No overdoing it.’
‘I understand.’
Makeda took a gulp of her tea. ‘Can you remedy erection problems too?’ she asked directly.
‘I think so – why?’
‘Could you put something in the food to help him get an erection?’
‘Not an immediate one. But in time, yes.’
‘But it’s got to be immediate.’
Maravan shrugged apologetically.
‘There are products that work in half an hour.’
‘I don’t have those sorts of products.’
‘I do,’ Makeda said.
When she left the flat a quarter of an hour later, a foil wrap with four pills lay next to the tea service.
In the middle of the night Maravan awoke with a fright. He had been standing by a wall of dense, green – dark green and wet from the rain – jungle. All of a sudden tanks broke through the undergrowth, turned, cut new swathes and vanished until their diesel engines were scarcely audible. Then they came back, turned and vanished, came back, turned and vanished, until there was nothing left of the green of the jungle. In the distance he could now see the dark, calm ocean.
Maravan turned on the light. The curry plants beside his bed stood there motionless, like petrified creatures.