Arjuna checked Scott’s gear one last time. In addition to Ellie’s encrypted laptop, Scott had given them radio earpieces, wire cutters, tactical goggles with night vision, Kevlar vests and a combat medi-kit. He wasn’t taking any chances. Ellie had pocketed Scott’s personal handheld, and he had reluctantly agreed to reconfigure the small device to her biometrics.
Satisfied they were properly equipped, Arjuna set off. He took them away from the highway as quickly as he could, and onto village roads, through the rice fields, blankets of green that swirled around them. Each portion of the patchwork was divided by narrow canals. Ellie saw a man walking behind a bony bullock attached to a plough. He pushed the animal with one hand, and swatted it with the other, urging it out of the rut. Eventually the bullock freed the plough and moved on, churning the muddy, drowned earth. In the distance, Ellie could see a row of houses.
‘Are we there already?’ she asked.
‘No. I want to show you something.’ He pulled over. ‘Take your shoes off and roll up your trousers.’
She followed Arjuna along the thin ridges that separated the paddy fields from each other. He balanced easily, his feet finding the solid ground and avoiding the softer parts that fell away.
The row of houses she had spotted was actually a train carriage. It sat in the middle of the paddy, red and rusted, surrounded by green. It had been rolled upside down by the tsunami of December 2004, its wheels in the air. The glass from its windows was no longer in place.
When they reached its entrance, the smell of sandalwood incense drifted out towards her.
‘Come,’ Arjuna said. Water pooled inside the carriage, lapping gently at his ankles. Someone had attached a rudimentary pump, ensuring that the water circulated instead of stagnated, but mosquitoes still clustered in its bowels.
The seats were made of slatted wood and vinyl, suspended from the ceiling of the upside-down carriage. People had hung garlands from the seats and they fell like jasmine stars from the ceiling, brushing her face as she walked through the aisle.
‘This was the Southern Express. It took people, mostly workers, from Hambantota to Tangalle. It survived the tsunami’s first wave. It was derailed and ended up on an embankment next to the tracks, and toppled over. Survivors say that no one was killed, just injured and scared.’
‘The second wave?’ she asked. Her voice was quiet but it echoed inside the watery cave. Blades of sunlight fell on the flowers and peeled the swollen vinyl off the seats.
‘The second wave … that embankment was seventy-five miles south of here.’
She shook her head as she walked through the rest of the tomb, unable to imagine the power and fury of the hand that had picked up this carriage and hurled it across the land, bringing it finally to rest here. ‘Survivors?’
‘Five, out of an estimated eight hundred passengers. There were three other carriages just like it, never found.’ He stopped at the last window, the wisps of sandalwood fading. He opened the bag around his shoulder, extracted a long, thin stick of incense and lit it.
‘How many people from your village?’ she asked.
‘Too many. My family was in Colombo for a wedding. We got lucky that time. Thirty thousand dead: twenty thousand in the south and ten thousand in the east, although the eastern numbers aren’t accurate. I think it was much more there.’ He murmured a prayer, then stepped back out of the carriage onto the muddy bank. ‘It was like the earth shuddered and then sighed. I think it was a message. A reminder that we are only temporary visitors on this planet, even though we behave as though we own it.’
‘I think it was the tragic movement of tectonic plates, Arjuna,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t mean that disrespectfully. I just don’t think there were deeper forces at play. If there were, then those forces are so cruel to kill the innocent like that.’
‘Innocent?’ He turned to her, his face more beautiful in the light than in the shadows. ‘Every religion speaks of an epic cleansing that happens from time to time. Noah and his ark. Nataraja and his cosmic dance of death. There is always a purging of evil. None of us are innocent in this country. We are all complicit in great crimes against each other. The tsunami was a reminder that we are being watched and there are consequences for our actions. We think we can escape our crimes, but we can’t. There is always a reckoning.’
•
Ellie followed Arjuna up the narrow stairwell. He pressed a button at each landing, setting off a fluorescent light that flickered and ignited half-heartedly. She grasped the railing, then wiped the grit and stickiness from her hand onto her trousers.
‘Hands to yourself,’ he said. ‘It’s not much, but the plumbing works and this suburb doesn’t get blackouts. It’s a pretty good grid to live on. Mostly families of teachers and soldiers around here.’
‘Why so much enlistment from this neighbourhood?’ she asked.
‘From this region, from the whole south. It’s different down here. More farmers, more poverty, more religion.’
‘Therefore, more patriotism?’
‘More nationalism,’ he corrected her.
They stopped at the third floor and he opened the door, calling greetings loudly in Sinhalese.
A woman with Arjuna’s almond eyes and wide smile came out to welcome him. She held him tightly as he lifted her into the air. When he put her back down, she started scolding him, taking his face in her hands and turning it this way and that to get a better look at his bruises.
‘Yes, yes.’ He pulled her hands away and stepped aside so she could see Ellie hovering in the doorway.
‘Ellie! Come in, come in!’ Namalie cried. ‘It’s been a long time.’ She hugged Ellie. The last time they had seen each other was in the ICU of Colombo General, where they both sat vigil by Arjuna’s bedside, watching him through a plastic bubble as nurses changed his sterile dressings, debrided his charred skin and kept him sequestered from infection.
‘Thank you for having me,’ Ellie said, letting go of her finally. She pulled out the chocolates and fruit she had brought. ‘Some books for the boys too. Arjuna mentioned they were into programming? I thought they might like the Steve Jobs biography.’
‘Thank you, Ellie. That’s lovely. Come, sit down. You’re just in time for dinner.’
Ellie excused herself and went to the small bathroom. She bent over the sink to splash water on her face and the back of her neck, and took her medication. Leaning on the sink, she breathed deeply, in through her nose and out through her mouth, looking at her face in the mirror.
Namalie depended on her brother. She loved him, and Ellie had almost taken him away from her.
‘I thought you might need this,’ Namalie handed Ellie a towel as she left the bathroom. Namalie looked around self-consciously. ‘It’s not much.’
‘It’s home and it’s lovely. Thank you.’ It’s home when your brother is here, safe with you, she wanted to say.
Namalie smiled. ‘Come and eat.’
•
Ellie took the dirty plates from the table and placed them in the shallow sink. Namalie joined her in the kitchen with the empty pot of rice.
‘How is he?’ Ellie asked her.
‘He’s okay, I think. His body recovered a long time ago. The scars have healed as much as they ever will. They might fade a little more over time, but not much,’ Namalie replied.
‘There are other surgeries overseas. I looked into it and sent him information. I could organise it. We would cover it. We owe him that. But he never replied to my emails.’ Ellie picked up the scrubbing brush in the sink.
‘Please don’t,’ Namalie remonstrated, taking the brush away. ‘You’re our guest.’
‘More like family,’ Ellie said. She reclaimed the brush and began washing the plates.
‘Thank you, Ellie.’ Namalie allowed her to continue. ‘Arjuna told me about those surgeries. He says he’ll keep his scars. Says he’s grown attached to them. I think the scars are his way of punishing himself.’
‘He doesn’t need to punish himself,’ Ellie said.
‘There are scars on the outside, but it’s the ones on the inside I worry about more. He still has nightmares. Not as many as before, but still.’
Ellie had nightmares too. She didn’t say anything.
‘He refuses to meet anyone. I’ve tried, my mother has tried. There are plenty of women who would be interested. He earns a good living, it’s a respected job with the Embassy. He’s a hero with the Hambantota division of the Army after what happened. He could get a job here, if he wanted. People still remember my father too, with love.’
Arjuna had told her that story. Namalie’s husband had been killed alongside their father by the Marxist uprising in the south twenty years ago. The Marxist JVP had dragged them from the post office where they worked together, taken them to the playground across the street with others, garlanded them with rubber tyres, poured petrol on them and then set them alight.
The Sinhalese called it the Time of Great Fear, the time of silent killing, when Sinhalese people had killed Sinhalese people instead of Tamils.
Namalie took a clean plate from Ellie and began to dry it. ‘He says he’s driving diplomats around, providing security, like an armed tour guide. Given the state of his face, I think he does more than just drive people around, but he won’t tell me. He doesn’t want to worry me.’
‘He can take care of himself,’ Ellie tried to reassure her.
Namalie stopped working and turned to face her. ‘He wants to take care of you too. You know he volunteered for your assignment? He’s been happier since you returned. It’s given him a sense of purpose. Like he was waiting for you.’