There had been no problem with Nulani leaving. Contrary to what Sugi had said, the uncle did not return in the morning, and Mrs Mendis had been friendly enough. She asked Theo if Nulani was likely to get another commission. The money was always useful and what with Jim leaving for the UK there were even more expenses. Theo continued to dislike the woman but, folding these thoughts, he slipped them out of sight. He smoothed them down like a sheet on an unmade bed. And then the girl came out with her bouquet of excitement, her dress a scarlet splash across the day, and all his momentary irritation with the mother, and his anxiety over the uncle, all of it vanished and the morning shifted and changed into a different, glorious focus. He turned the car around on the gravel and they left. The edges of her hair were still damp from her early-morning shower.
Theo thought it was best to take the coast road. In spite of the checkpoints and occasional roadblocks, it was quicker and more straightforward. He had wedged two of the paintings in the boot of the car but the third, being so much larger, rested on the back seat. The girl was trying to hide her excitement and failing. It escaped in little green tendrils, curling itself around him, rising like the wisps of mist that were coming in from the sea. It was going to be another scorching day. The
girl’s excitement was such that Theo was certain she had not slept much.
‘You’ll be exhausted by lunchtime,’ he said looking at her, thinking she looked as though it was Christmas. As though she was about to open her presents. He hid his own excitement at having a whole day with her, talking to her, having her paintings looked at, keeping his delight quiet and cool, even though all he wanted was to hold her small hand. The day lay ahead of them, as clear as the sea emerging from its mist. It felt, for Theo, a snatch-back from his youth. He did not think all this, not in so many words. All he saw was the smoothness of the beach and the shining excited eyes of the girl.
‘Why don’t you try to take a nap?’ he said, pretending to be tired, trying to sound bored. ‘It will take an hour to reach Colombo, maybe longer. Why don’t you have a little sleep, no?’
And then he burst out laughing, looking at her astonished face and her total incomprehension.
‘Well,’ he said, smiling, pretending to yawn, teasing her some more, ‘It’s what you would do if you were
my
age!’
And he thought again how her eyes were like dark cherries.
‘Your friend, what is he like?’ asked Nulani.
The road wound its way along a picturesque stretch of the coastline. Groups of rocks thrust their way into the sea. Giant cacti clung to the edges of the sand. Coconut palms fringed the beach, sometimes so densely that only glimpses of sea could be seen. At other places whole stretches of white sand, empty and clean, unfolded before them, fringed by the lacy edge of the waves and marked by the empty railway line.
‘Rohan? He is a fine painter. He used to live in London, which was where I met him. He was my wife’s friend to start with. She knew him long before I did; she used to buy his paintings. Then, after I met Anna, I saw one of them hanging in her apartment
and I wanted to meet him too. Because I liked the painting, and because he was my countryman.’ Rohan, he thought, how to describe Rohan? How to describe the times they had spent together? Rohan, with his Italian wife Giulia, and Anna, in that other, distant life. The years of holidaying together, in Venice, in the Tuscan hills. The evenings spent arguing and drinking wine, the affection. And afterwards, Rohan and Giulia at the funeral, beside him as he stood blinded by the unnatural brightness of his pain, rejecting all offers of friendship. But they had not minded. Like the true friends they were, they had understood, had waited patiently, year upon year, writing to him, telling him about their lives, their decision to return to Rohan’s home in Colombo, in spite of the trouble. So that slowly, given time, Theo began to write back to them. They were his dearest friends. Nulani was watching him intensely.
‘You will like them both,’ he said, knowing that they would love the girl.
The sun was climbing to its hottest point as they reached the first checkpoint. The currents had subsided and the sea was calm. There were hardly any waves now. The fishing boats had put out to sea again. At the checkpoint a woman soldier examined their passes and searched the car.
‘The paintings are wet,’ Nulani said, but it was too late, she had already touched them.
‘You can’t go much further,’ the soldier told them flatly. ‘The road is blocked. You will have to leave the A2 and go inland through the coconut groves until you get to the ruined city and then you can pick up the Colombo road again after that. There is another checkpoint further up. After that you will have to turn right.’
The detour would add half an hour to their journey.
‘There has been an incident,’ the woman soldier continued. ‘It’s over now but it will take some time to clear.’
‘An accident?’ asked Theo.
‘No, an incident,’ she repeated shortly. And then she smiled, a swift flash of uneven white teeth, from some other long-vanished and different kind of life.
‘Look for the ruined city,’ she said abruptly. ‘It’s very beautiful. If you are an artist,’ she glanced briefly at Nulani, nodding her head, ‘you will like it there. You can make a
pujas
, pray for a safe journey.’
And she waved them on.
Further along the road, about a mile away, the land swept into a wide long bend. A whole stretch of beach lay before them. Then the road forked, turning sharply to the right, heading into the coconut grove; suddenly the roadblock the soldier had promised was in front of them. Two army trucks acted as a barrier. A police car was parked to one side, its light flashing pointlessly. On the edge of the cliff, overlooking the sea, there were two limousines piled into one another. It looked at first as though there had been an accident. But there was no ambulance present. Only uniformed men with sub-machine guns paced the road. In the high bright morning light the dead strewn across the side of the road bore the strangest resemblance to piles of scattered dirty laundry, bundled up and ready for washing. All around was the sweet drenching smell of an invisible blossom. There was, too, a curious dry odour, dead and chemical, which Theo knew could only have come from explosives. He stopped the car and a soldier, a man of about twenty-five, came up to the open window. Theo handed over their documents.
‘What happened?’
His voice, flanked by the waves and the sound of a train rushing suddenly past, seemed to come from a long way away.
‘Open the boot!’
Theo was aware of the girl’s anxiety. All the time he was
opening the boot and holding the pictures for the man to see, telling the soldier the paint was not dry and that they were taking them to the university to show Professor Fernando, all that time, while the huge seagulls wheeled overhead, her anxiety drifted towards Theo. When they were finally dismissed, with a sharp movement of a rifle butt, the day itself had acquired a sour hard taste to it. Turning the car into the coconut grove, Theo saw a slender brown arm, fingers curled slightly. It was severed below the rolled-up sleeves of an otherwise clean white shirt. An ordinary white shirt, the sort he owned.
It was another quarter of an hour to the ruined city with its votive dagoba. A woman selling king coconuts stood bare-headed in the burning sun. She knew nothing about the roadblock or the massacre at the crossroads, but the detour meant she had sold nearly all her coconuts even before ten o’clock. They drank the cold coconut water and wandered around the dry earth-caked ruins. Theo watched the girl, a flutter of scarlet cloth against the orange lichen-covered statues. She stood with her head bent, eyes closed, and the sickness and horror and the pity of what he had just seen was touched with the sweetness of her presence, turning slowly within him. They were due at Rohan’s place by eleven.
Through the wing mirror Vikram watched them drive off. He was dismantling a Kalashnikov. Gerard had moved the car to a wooded area not far from the ruined city. Now he rubbed the dust from the wing mirror so he could see the Mendis girl more clearly. He swatted a mosquito on his arm and wiped the blood off.
‘The mosquitoes are back,’ he told Gerard.
Gerard grunted and mopped his brow. They had had a successful morning. Seven dead and the Singhalese army in a quandary. What could be better? Nobody knew there were any Tigers in the locality.
‘They didn’t see us,’ was all he said as the car disappeared round the bend of the road. ‘Now you should go back. Walk around the town, talk to people, let them see you. D’you understand? Vikram, are you paying attention?’ he added sharply.
Gerard was still a little jumpy. He knew he was happiest when he did not have to do the dirty work. But he had not wanted Vikram to tackle it alone. Not this time anyway. Now all he wanted was to get rid of the boy. He was not interested in his chatter. Vikram’s calmness had stunned Gerard. To his astonishment, the boy had hardly batted an eyelid. He’s a tough nut, thought Gerard, tougher than even I expected. Handled properly, he could be quite dangerous. Vikram was nodding. He was vaguely aware that Gerard was nervous but by contrast he felt suddenly exhilarated and ready for more action.
‘It’s important you don’t blow your cover. So make sure as many people as possible see you. Pity you don’t have more friends. Can’t you talk to that Mendis girl?’
‘Maybe,’ said Vikram, instantly scowling.
‘I would take you over to that fellow, you know, Theo Samarajeeva, but the servant is suspicious of me.’
‘I’ll talk to her,’ Vikram said, rather too quickly. He did not want Gerard to get involved with the girl.
‘OK, now go,’ said Gerard. ‘I’ll take the gun back to my place. No, Vikram,’ he said firmly, before the boy could protest. ‘It’s for your own safety. You don’t want to get caught carrying a weapon. I’ll see you back at the shop after dark.’ He placed the two dismantled Kalashnikovs in his rucksack. ‘It’ll take you about an hour on foot,’ he said. ‘Take the track through the jungle and go straight to the town and have a beer. I’ll see you later. And, Vikram,’ he added as the boy got out of the car, ‘well done!’
Vikram slunk into the trees. He knew this path well, having gone over it many times with Gerard after dark. He would follow
the track until he reached the river and then it would be another quarter of a mile until he reached the outskirts of the town. After he had had his beer he would go and find the shopkeeper’s daughter, and take her to the back of the garages, he decided. The day had left him with an unexpectedly pleasant feeling. He had not lost his nerve and he knew Gerard had been impressed. It was the first time he had used the gun, the first time he had killed anyone. Gerard had looked at him curiously and not without a certain admiration. Once, long ago, Vikram remembered his father looking at him in this way after he had recited some verse he had learned in school. As he hurried through the trees, lowering his eyes to the ground, watching out for snakes, his mind was momentarily caught in a contented daydream. Then he remembered the Mendis girl. What had she been doing in that car just now, so far from home? Why was she always with that old man? He wanted to see her again, for there was something mysterious about her that eluded him. Gerard was right; he should talk to her, although for some reason, not entirely clear, Vikram did not want
him
to have anything to do with her.
‘Nulani,’ he said, experimentally.
Perhaps, thought Vikram, perhaps I should talk to her uncle. Yes, that’s what I’ll do, he decided. I’ll make friends with the uncle. Then maybe I’ll get invited to the house. Tearing a branch off a tree, clearing a path, he continued on his way.
Rohan was drawing in the garden behind his studio, shaded by a murunga tree.
‘Come in, come in. We have been waiting for you fellows. Giulia is preparing a feast. She has engaged the entire service of the black market in your honour!’
He beamed at them and the girl smiled. Rohan was exactly as Theo had described him.
‘Now then,’ said Theo, watching Nulani, ‘don’t start drawing the poor man yet!’
In the last part of their drive the day had righted itself somehow. The girl’s quiet voice talking lightly about insubstantial things had soothed him. He knew she was talking simply to distract him. He was amazed once again by her intuition and her insight. He knew this quality was also in her work. He hoped Rohan would see it too. Then he caught sight of Giulia hurrying towards them. She was laughing and balancing a tray of soft drinks and ice as she walked. For a second Theo was struck by the returning past. In this way had she come towards him when he had first met her. Again he felt a shift of focus towards all that had gone before, so that the memory of Anna returned to him again. The cuttlefish pasta, the wine, the clove-scented cigarettes. He saw, from the outside looking in, all he had denied himself for so long. And in that instant, the many thoughts he had punished himself with smoothed out and became simple and calm. In this way he remembered it, with a sudden rush, sweetly, and without bitterness. Somewhere nearby were the faint cries of seagulls, and he heard these too, coming back to him hauntingly, as though from another, different, Adriatic sky.
‘This is Nulani,’ he said, his hand on the girl’s cool arm, feeling in that instant a poignant sense of belonging.
The afternoon wove around them. After a lunch of fresh crab curry and mallung, brinjal and
parippu
, of excellent curd and plantain, and beans, after an endlessly long and slow meal filled with banter, Rohan held up his hand.
‘Enough!’ he said, teasingly. ‘This will
not
do. We have serious business. We are here to look at Nulani’s paintings, you have all talked rubbish for long enough!’
And he covered his ears at their protestations. Sunlight danced on the walls. The war seemed something they had only heard about.
‘I shall clear a space in my studio,’ announced Rohan, handing Theo a cigar.
‘My God!’ said Giulia. ‘It isn’t often I hear him saying anything about clearing his studio. This is your doing, Nulani!’