Jeopardy

The lawyer who was against them asked: Is November twenty-seventh a special day for you?

Mr. Gigovaz had coached Mahindan to look the judge straight in the eyes. To keep his hands folded so they would not shake. Mahindan said in English: Twenty-seven November is Martyrs’ Day.

Singh turned to the judge and said: A day to commemorate suicide bombers. Also called Heroes’ Day.

Mahindan squeezed his hands. Martyrs’ Day was for mourning – a day when Sellian stayed home from school and they went to the temple with Ruksala and Prem to say a prayer for Rama. In this country, he knew, they also had a Heroes’ Day, in November. Something his grandfather had told him: History is owned by the winners.

Singh wanted to know how he observed Martyrs’ Day, and he was forced to admit he lit lamps in the house and went onto the road to watch the dramatic re-enactments.

And you took your son with you to these celebrations? Singh prodded.

Mr. Gigovaz interrupted: What would have happened if you had stayed home or not decorated your house?

How many detention reviews had he already endured? Was this the seventh? The eighth? Mahindan had the Japanese judge again, the one who he was sure had given Sellian to another family. Some judges wore their opinions like clothes; Mahindan could glean their thoughts in their furrowed brows, the way they either watched him or didn’t. But he’d seen this Japanese woman more than anyone else, and she always had the same unreadable expression, mouth compressed in a severe line.

Mahindan told the truth: If we had not taken part in the celebrations, the cadres would have beat us up, forced me to join them.

Did she not know what it was like to have so little agency? To be faced with such cruel options it was as if there was no choice at all? These Canadians, with all their creature comforts, had such meagre imaginations.

Duress, Mr. Gigovaz said to the judge, before turning to Singh and adding: Mr. Mahindan was a father and a widower living in an LTTE-controlled area. Would any of us have done differently?

Priya was not here today and Mahindan missed her presence. Just having her at the table – another person on his side – was a comfort.

Singh wanted to know why he hadn’t left Kilinochchi sooner. Why didn’t you take your son and move somewhere else – to a place that was not under Tiger control?

Mahindan swallowed back his frustration. He told himself it was good she was asking these foolish questions because he had prepared his answers and practised them in English.

He said: In my country, there is no freedom.

Civilians living in LTTE-controlled areas required permission to leave, Mr. Gigovaz said. And after 2008, passes were heavily restricted.

Mahindan looked from Singh to the judge, back to Singh again, unsure of where to direct his appeal. Even with the pass, he said, where to go? Without a Sinhalese name, without knowing to speak their language? The Sinhalese, they hate Tamils. In my country, we are treated like animals. They just do not understand life.

Mr. Gigovaz appealed to the judge: The Sri Lankan government has engaged in systematic discrimination against its Tamil citizens ever since the introduction of the Sinhala First Act in 1956. This is all well-documented.

The judge turned on him: These specious arguments may hold water with some of my colleagues, Mr. Gigovaz, but please give me a little more credit. Your client was born into a country at war. He might have tried a little harder to leave sooner. She glared at Mahindan and added: Through legal means.

Mahindan panicked. All this time, he had thought the judge was bored; now, he realized she had already made her decision. Mahindan would never be allowed to leave the jail. His fate had been sealed before he’d walked in the door.

I held everything, he said, rubbing a palm over his sweaty upper lip. He cast about for the English words, mind racing. Money, house, business. I held everything, but I could not do nothing. He heard the tremble in his voice and hated that he could not control it. Kilinochchi, Colombo…no safe place to be a Tamil. Blood rushed in his ears. He had to do something! He had to convince her! There was a boat to Canada, he said. I took my chance.

The driver with the missing incisor, his pockmarked face leering in the shadows. The memory of it stopped Mahindan cold. Squeezing through a hole in the fence, alert for the sound of approaching guards. Sweat beaded the back of his neck. His stomach turned.

Singh pounced: How much did you pay the agent for your passage?

Mahindan knew better than to admit the true figure. He had not mastered the numbers yet and answered in Tamil: Five hundred thousand rupees.

The driver was a small man, hunched from years of stealth. Black as a devil, the whites of his eyes shining greedy in the darkness. The van already full and Mahindan still at the back of the mob, terrified the doors would slam shut in his face before he had a chance to scramble in. Sellian at his side, face pressed into his leg.

Five hundred thousand rupees, Singh said. She was tapping the edge of a folder against the desk as if she knew something and was drawing out the big reveal. Others are saying they paid more. Is there some reason the agent would give you a discount?

The judge was watching, curious now. His guts turned to liquid and he thought he might be sick. Mahindan took a deep breath through his nose and willed his face to show nothing but honesty. They all thought the agent who took their money was a man, that one person had coordinated the escape. They knew nothing. Not one single thing.

My wife used to say first price is worst price, he said. In Sri Lanka, this is the way. Always try and try until we are getting better.

Singh asked another question and Mahindan tried to follow, getting tripped up by her grammar and his own pounding pulse. He had to wait for the interpreter to explain.

Isn’t it true the real reason you did not leave Kilinochchi sooner is because you were a member of the LTTE?

No, Mahindan said to the interpreter. Please tell them. Never.

He felt a little calmer. They didn’t mind about the agent. Everyone on the boat had used an agent, and some of the women, at least, had been released from jail. It didn’t matter what this or that person paid for the passage.

My client was a mechanic, Mr. Gigovaz told the judge, and Mahindan understood this meant he repaired vehicles. His vocabulary had improved, thanks to news programs and reward shows, Peter Mansbridge and Alex Trebek. Jeopardy meant danger, but it also meant prizes.

When Singh said, Tell us about the bus you repaired in April 2003, he knew this was jeopardy.

There was a problem with the brakes, Mahindan told Singh, struggling to modulate his voice and make it sound calm. I had to replace them.

It was a marvel to him – the power of the Canadian police. Their ability to reach back in time and riffle through the minute details of his long-ago life. Mahindan had replaced the brake pads on countless buses over the years – minibuses, school buses, the number 4 public bus that ran the Kilinochchi–Jaffna route six times a day. That the authorities here could sift through all the Tatas and Leylands and come up with this one bus was terrifying.

This vehicle you worked on, Singh said. Did you do anything else apart from fixing the brakes?

They were in a different room than usual and the judge sat at a raised dais. She stared down at Mahindan, her expression shrewd.

Mahindan said: Only brakes had a problem. There was nothing else to repair.

He told himself it was all right. Mr. Gigovaz had warned him Singh would bring this evidence forward. He was prepared to answer her questions.

Exhibit F, Singh said. On May 19, 2003, the LTTE drove a bus rigged with explosives into an airplane hangar in Ratmalana, killing seventeen people, including three children and Sri Lanka’s minister of agriculture. In repairing the bus, this man was directly responsible for the death of seventeen civilians.

Mahindan heard the triumph in her voice, the way she tried and failed to smother it at the end after realizing how it sounded – victory at the expense of seventeen dead foreigners. Everything about Singh spoke of her conviction, how certain she was that she could keep him locked away forever. Seventeen civilians.

Mahindan pressed his knees together to keep them from trembling and said very quickly, in English: Only I repaired brakes. I did not jig up no bombs.

When the bus was brought to your shop, did you know it belonged to the LTTE?

Mahindan shook his head. He was flustered by the injustice. Do work for the Tigers or be crushed by them. Give the Canadians a reason to deport him or tell a pack of lies. There was never a good option. He lapsed into Tamil and allowed the interpreter to be his mouthpiece.

I was a simple mechanic. I repaired motorcycles and cars and public buses. When the Tigers came to me, I did not have a choice. I repaired what was broken and did not ask questions.

Singh asked: It didn’t bother you that the bus you fixed killed seventeen innocent people?

If he closed his eyes, he would see the green line again, hear the two doctors. Heart rate. Pressure dropping. His ears rang, the shrill so loud he could barely hear his own words. A cadre brought the bus and said to me, You repair it. If I had refused, he would have beaten me. If I had refused again, he would have killed me.

The impassive machines, the high, flustered voice of the nurse. Can’t find it! Can’t find it! Chithra’s tears sliding sideways.

Chithra! he yelped.

He felt pressure on his wrist and saw Mr. Gigovaz, his face splotched red, his expression kind.

Chithra, Mahindan repeated, more softly. My wife was pregnant at the time. He appealed to the judge and said: With our son. The cadre would have set fire to our house, allowed my wife to burn inside. The things they did to us…you cannot imagine. Sinhalese army, Tamil Tigers…we were nothing to them.

He held the judge’s eye and for a long moment there was silence. This was the judge who had set Hema and her daughters free. He held on to this nugget, this proof of her goodness.

Singh made a noise as if she was about to speak and Mr. Gigovaz cut her off: As a civilian making a living in a Tiger-controlled area, my client had no choice but to do work for the LTTE.

Mahindan said, When the bus came to me, I did not know nothing about a bombing. Only later, when it was done, only then I knew it was the bus I had repaired.

How often did you work for the LTTE? Singh asked.

Mahindan answered in Tamil: From time to time, changing transmissions, repairing engines, this kind of thing. No bombs, he added in English. No bombs.

Mr. Gigovaz said: My client has testified that he turned down offers to join the LTTE. And although Border Services has tried to suggest otherwise, there is no proof he ever trained or fought with them.

Fixing the brakes on a vehicle that is about to be used in a terrorist attack is as good as strapping on the explosives, Singh said. And by his own admission, your client continued to work with the LTTE even after he knew what they were capable of. She ignored Mr. Gigovaz and spoke directly to the judge: The migrant aided and abetted a terror attack. In repairing an LTTE-owned bus, he was party to a war crime.

Mahindan put his head in his hands and moaned.