On this January afternoon, there was hardly anyone to be seen. I wondered whether this citadel of knowledge was an empty shell. Perhaps there was nothing inside and that was what Mr Desmond was going to remedy. He seemed a man who knew what needed to be done. We need people like that in our country. People who know things and can do things or at least get them done.
As the library was meant to be a place open to all, I thought I should take a look. I have heard it said that it is better to be a laggard than an ignoramus and I had an hour to kill. I locked up the vehicle and went to the entrance.
The front veranda was like something that belonged to a palace. If you went straight in, you would come to a foyer with an information desk. There were two women dealing with inquiries. To go and speak to them, you had to take off your shoes. So I did. The floor was nice and cool. I didn’t see Mr Desmond’s shoes anywhere but then, being an official visitor, he must have gone straight to an office that did not have such stipulations.
My inquiry was simple: I wanted to know what sort of books they kept in the library.
I asked my question in English. After all, it is the obvious link language.
The older woman replied. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘Nothing special. I was just curious.’
‘If you go up, you can see the periodicals room.’ She gestured towards the stairs on the side. ‘People like to go there for newspapers and magazines. Go and see. You’ll find some old English books there also, if you really want.’
How she had me figured out so easily, I don’t know, but that’s education for you, I guess.
At the top of the stairs, the first-floor veranda opened into a balcony—the roof of the porch. You could see the sea from there and a good stretch of the road leading up to the library. The big trees on the side seemed less overbearing; one could feel equal to them, even if one was not. A small group of young women in lilac saris entered through the gate. I reckoned they were students. The blob in the sentry box hardly stirred.
*
In the periodicals room, there were a few people buried in newspapers. Older men, old enough to have been sitting in the original rooms of this library before it was set alight. I wondered what it felt like for them to be there, rustling pages in the warm air, hearing birds singing outside again.
Against the walls of the room, there were glass cases with small clusters of old brittle books on thin tindery bones. Not the sort of thing you see in the snazzy bookshops in Colombo nowadays where I have taken tourists craving luscious eye-watering pictures and tasty recipes for hot crab curry and breudher cake.
The glass cases were locked, so I went back out on to the sunny balcony.
‘Are you a visitor?’ a voice asked me from behind, in Sinhala.
I turned and found a gangly young man sizing me up.
I shrugged. ‘I was just looking.’
‘What do you think of it?’
‘Looks good,’ I said.
‘They rebuilt it.’
‘Is it just as it was?’ I asked.
‘I never saw it before. I was born after the damage. I only know a lot has been lost.’
I realized he was probably still in his teens. ‘I’ve never been in a library before,’ I explained. True. I have taken evening classes and I have read magazines, even books picked up from here and there, but not from a library.
He looked bemused. ‘Where are you from? Are there no libraries where you live?’
‘I live in Colombo. We have a big public library. Also the British Council. But I just never thought I could go in. I didn’t know they had magazines and all.’
‘That’s a shame,’ he said. ‘I come here every day. I am a student. They say this library will one day have a hundred thousand books, like it used to. Even if it does not bring back the poetry, the ola leaves, the record of our civilization and all that, it would still be a day worth waiting for.’
I couldn’t imagine a hundred thousand books, or what he really meant, although I remembered the news of the burning. There are all sorts of stories now about who did it, ranging from the cruel to the ludicrous. I suppose that is why you need a record of what really happened. An account you can trust. Or several. And maybe you put them in a library for all to see, and hope no one will tamper with the truth then.
I asked him what he was studying. He said languages: English and Italian.
I felt a twinge of envy. ‘You can do that in a college?’
‘English at the college. Italian I do on my own. I found a book here in the library.’
‘In Italian?’
‘Have you heard of Dante? He is a famous Italian poet. I found a book that has his writing in Italian and an English translation below the verses on every page. It is very wonderful. He puts all his enemies in hell. In nine circles of hell.’ He widened his eyes and elongated the next words. ‘The In-ferno.’
‘Is that your plan also?’
‘My plan is to go to Italy.’
I tried to imagine this boy in a country neither of us had ever seen and I had only heard of through bits of news on TV, or random conversations about crafty politicos and charming megalomaniacs. ‘What do you know of Italy?’ I asked.
‘I have seen it on the Internet. My cousin sells paintings in Piazza Navona, in Roma. And I have another cousin who is a cook in Sicily.’
‘You are serious? You want to leave your home?’
‘I have lived here all my life. It has not always been like this.’ He pointed at the calm peaceful expanse ahead of us. ‘My brother was a hero at the Second Battle of Elephant Pass.’
‘The future will be different,’ I said.
‘I hope so. But for me, the future is another country . . .’ His voice trailed off.
One of the young women I had seen coming through the gates earlier had climbed up the stairs. She recognized my companion and smiled.
‘Ciao,’ he said with a big boyish grin.
She laughed and clutched her parcel of books tighter. She asked him something in Tamil.
‘In a minute,’ he replied in English.
She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation and went inside to the periodicals room.
The young man turned back to me. ‘Only two things here for me now. My Dante book and that girl. The book I know you can download on Google if you have a connection. And she, like me, has no family left alive here.’
*
After the boy followed the girl into the reading room, I returned to the van. I could understand the boy’s need to travel, to break out. That is why I have the van. To go places. I like to see things slip pass the window on an open road. But for all the driving I do, I never seem to break out. I am always in the van. And wherever I go in the van, I reach the edge and have to turn back like an ant on a floating leaf. I go everywhere in this country, but nowhere in my mind. Maybe you can never really leave the past behind. It is in your head and outside your control.
When I bought the van, one of the first trips I did was for myself. Not for hire. I went down the Galle Road, heading south. Not to go somewhere I had never been before, but to do exactly the opposite. To go somewhere I had been many times before. To revive a memory not just of the scenery, but the thrill of being there in my own vehicle. To regain the road for myself somehow and bind the past to the present and make it truly my own. I went down the coast like we used to when I was chauffeur to madam and I’d drive her party to Hikkaduwa with boxes of egg sandwiches in the dicky, stopping to buy biscuits from the old Monis Bakery, filling the car with the smell of warm sugar and coconut while the sea played peek-a-boo between the trees and catamarans, and I felt I belonged to a lucky world of free meals and white shirts and iced coffee, where the conversation I could overhear was of a prosperous world somehow within my reach—yes, we had real dreams those days—and I could see the lives of the fishermen through the eyes of my passengers as picturesque rather than desperate and at the mercy of the wind and the waves. What I found when I went on my own
was a roadside still littered with the debris of the tsunami, even so many years after that awful Boxing Day in 2004 when the tide played hell.
What was left was rubble, and what had healed was scarred. We have paid a heavy toll, north and south, and now live in the shadowlands forever, mending hope and broken memory as if they were torn nets for lost fishes.
It sometimes frightens me when I think that I can have my hands on the steering wheel, my foot on the pedal, and still be so not in control.
Mr Desmond appeared on the veranda with a lady in a white sari. His two assistants stood behind him while he continued talking. I eased the van forward, giving him time to bring his conversation to a close. I find people tend to rush things the moment they see their transport coming. Only the most confident, and unfortunately the most obnoxious of people, seem to understand that the vehicle and the driver are under their command. A hired car is not like a train running to a timetable. But perhaps we all need a prop, a crutch, an excuse to do what has to be done?
Mr Desmond seemed to have found a decent balance. He acknowledged my arrival, but didn’t rush his goodbyes.
‘Thank you, Mrs Kumaraswamy. It has been a very useful meeting. I will make sure the books are dispatched immediately.’
One of his assistants opened the door before I could. I tried to shepherd them anyway, as I think it is only right that the driver closes his passenger’s door.
I bowed my head to Mrs Kumaraswamy as she struggled to keep her balance on the top step. She was as thin as a stick with a piece of cotton flapping around it. Her eyes wavered. ‘We will be waiting,’ she said quietly.
I got behind the wheel and we eased out, around the garden to the gate. In his box, the sentry fanned himself with a small pamphlet, and stared as we made our exit.
‘Back to the hotel, sir?’ I asked.
‘Yes, let’s go.’
I took a left. The road was clear.
Mr Desmond turned to his assistants. ‘You have the list?’
‘Yes, sir. All ticked.’ One tapped a brown folder.
‘We have all those management and technology books from the Americans. They’ll like those.’ Mr Desmond mopped the back of his neck with a handkerchief. ‘And those agricultural development books from the UK. Microfinance and all. That’ll do the trick.’
‘But she wanted poetry books.’ The other assistant’s voice faltered.
Mr Desmond snorted. ‘Bloody strange woman. I don’t know what she is thinking of with that nonsense. Who at a time like this is going to want poetry books?’
‘She said something about classics from around the world.’
‘Totally batty. She is living so far in the past, you can’t even spell it. She said they needed Italian books, for God’s sake. Tamil will be tough enough. I don’t think she has any idea of what you need these days. How the hell is she going to cope running Internet and all that?’
SOUTH
Ramparts
The lighthouse is always a surprise. So much smaller than you would expect. A sturdy enough how-do-you-do but very much in keeping with the rest of Galle Fort: neat, tidy and erected on a Lilliput scale. Not overbearing like some of the grand edifices that teeter on this risky coast, vast emblems of human folly on the last piece of land in the ocean. From here, there is nothing but water for thousands of miles until the ice of the Antarctic. And yet, this naughty beacon of the south seemed not much more than a paper lantern on a coconut tree.
I had the night off. My three Russians were safely deposited for the evening at a spanking new spa in a fancy hotel. No doubt being waxed and thwacked and mud-slapped even as the muezzin calls from his tower two blocks away. My trips to Galle are the easiest, especially now with the new highway that nobody knows how to use. I love it. Where else in this country can you stay at sixty for more than two minutes? On the southern expressway, I can do it for half an hour. Not even a cat crosses the road. It must be like the autobahn that Mrs Klein from GTZ talked about. No doubt those loose boys in their Ferraris will tear it up soon enough, but I haven’t had anyone overtake me so far. In fact, I haven’t seen anyone else on it at all except for Simon puttering in his old crock. But once in Galle Fort, when I have parked the van for the night and am taking my stroll down to the ramparts, I feel more like a sailor come home than a driver between runs.
I like to walk from the lighthouse all the way to the very end where the army barracks stand, screened by temple trees with their badly stained blossom. At the end of the day, when the sun is low and melty, the light seeps out in a gold wash and a lovely soft breeze comes in from the sea. Walking along the ramparts, whether it is on the grass bund or the stone walkway, you can leave all the entanglements of daily life behind and slip into a world of your own. Marvel at the luck of being alive in a place so soothing to the soul.
This evening was one of those auspicious ones for young love. Beyond the mosque and the Muslim College, a stretch of stone and sea invites you to go down to a series of small sandy curves that, like inverted oases, are held between the swirling water and the bays of the old wall. In three consecutive coves, young twirling couples were having their wedding photos taken, fastening their hopes to a confetti of red and gold saris, white suits, black suits, muslin dresses, hats and umbrellas and flowers. Each couple reaching for intimacy but pinched and pulled and clucked and clicked by a control-mad photo-zealot. I have never been married but I have ferried enough wedding parties to know that intimacy is one thing that disappears on the night, even if virginity might have dissolved long before. One must be very besotted not to notice the loss. If I could, I would take all the photographers and their paraphernalia and lock them up to let these couples find the romance they long for, at least for one day, on a real beach of their own rather than in the flurry of images concocted by strangers, which will eventually be relegated to old shoeboxes and obsolete memory sticks.
*
‘Match, machang?’ A young soldier, in camouflage kit, held up a cigarette delicately between his thumb and two fingers.
I fetched out my I-Love-München lighter. A present from Mrs Klein, who came down here last month looking for sun, samadhi and plush aromatherapy after her Vanni One project in the north. I had been planning to give up smoking, but it was so nice of her that I have delayed the quit-plan and started a pure air deficit reduction plan. And I like the idea of carrying a flame in my pocket. I like to be prepared. In my younger days, I used to always carry a condom in my coin purse, ever-hopeful, until it and all hope completely dried out. A pressed flower or a rosary might have been a better bet, but hindsight is exactly what we don’t have in youth, love, war or politics.
I clicked the lighter and the soldier lowered his head to my cupped hand as though I was his confessor. His uniform was not properly done up and you could see the dips around the base of his throat. He also didn’t carry a gun, which made me feel safer. There is something about a gun that always puts me on edge, as though the metal has a mind of its own and might decide to burst into action. God knows it happens often enough.
‘Nice view.’ I said, in Sinhala, making an effort at soldierly small talk.
He checked his watch. ‘One hour more. Then back on duty at the barracks.’
‘Big camp?’
‘Holiday camp,’ he smirked. ‘After the war, this is our reward.’
I tried to imagine this thin young man with his vulnerable gawky throat diving for cover, shimmying up a hillside, firing a black blunt gun, fighting and killing young men just like himself.
‘You have been up north?’
‘Five years fighting before the peace. All over, from Mudumalai to Trincomalee. I am waiting to go back.’
‘To what? War is finished, no?’
Another wedding couple climbed up on to the ramparts. They stood for a moment against the sky. Their eager snapper popped up like a crab, all angles and bent legs.
‘Trinco.’ The soldier blew out a slow stream of sweet blue toxic smoke.
‘Y
ou don’t like this honeymoon place?’
‘I like it, but it makes me sad.’ He waved his cigarette towards the couple.
The gesture was slight, but disquieting. It seemed to cast another shadow over them. I suppose if one had spent years fighting for one’s life, then these moments of posed happiness might seem a little fragile.
‘This must be very far from what you have been through,’ I said.
‘It’s not that.’ He pointed at the barracks. ‘Fifteen boys came yesterday. They’d been up in Omanthai, at the border point. Five of them went wild last night, drinking in the bars in town until morning. Three of them snuck straight into bed and the others don’t know what to do and just want to go back.’
‘Like you?’
‘No. They want to go back to the job. To have something to do, you know. It is the biggest problem here. Rest and recuperation is not what they want.’ He shrugged. ‘At least not the kind that the army can offer.’
‘You also want something else?’ I asked.
The sound of the young bride’s laughter twinkled on the ramparts. The soldier looked at them. ‘Have you been married, machang?’
‘No, I am a driver. I am never in one place long enough.’
‘But what do you think of it? This business of getting married. What all these couples are doing here. What is it about, really? Fucking in a coffin?’
‘Two people meet,’ I said, ‘and learn how to live together.’
‘In this country? Is it possible?’ He stared at his cigarette as though it were a slow-burning fuse.
‘It’s not a coffin,’ I added, my mind racing. ‘The girl and the boy get into a vehicle, a train, a bus, a van, and discover they are going on a journey to the same place.’
Noontide Toll Page 8