The Hungry Ghosts (11 page)

The next day, during the school interval, Mili sat, as he often did, on the teacher’s table surrounded by his admirers. I read at my desk, watching him. He had avoided me the whole day, and now, aware of my gaze, he glanced at me helplessly before looking away.

7
 

S
INCE CHILDHOOD
, I
HAD BEEN AWARE
of an escalating tension between the Sinhalese and Tamils. In 1977, riots flared in parts of the island, though Colombo remained unaffected. The loss of Tamil lives, homes and businesses only gave strength to the Tamil Tiger rebels and their fight for an independent homeland. As I grew into my teens, the rebels began to bomb state institutions, rob banks and kill policemen. In retaliation, the government passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which allowed them to make arrests without warrants, hold a person indefinitely without laying a charge, use confessions made under duress as admissible evidence and dispose of bodies without an inquest. The torture and disappearance of Tamils only invigorated the independence movement. By 1981, parts of Sri Lanka were again in the grip of communal riots, sparked by a clash between Sinhala and Tamil students at a sports event. And once again, Colombo was spared, apart from a few days of curfew.

How lightly all this registered on my consciousness. I don’t even remember much talk about these incidents. Perhaps we Sri Lankans could not bear to look directly at the increasing tension; perhaps, also, we could not imagine our country sinking to the level it ultimately did, could not imagine we were capable of such degradation. It was inflation that I most remember people complaining about. The government, under pressure from the World Bank and the IMF, had opened up the economy and devalued the rupee. A pound of chilies quadrupled in price while salaries remained the same.

Then, during June and early July of 1983, when I was eighteen and about to take my A-level exams, the violence speeded up. Tamil Tigers frequently attacked soldiers and policemen; in return, more Tamil civilians were
tortured and disappeared. Sinhalese thugs and some soldiers destroyed Tamil shops in the eastern town of Trincomalee; in retaliation, Tamil Tigers burnt a Jaffna train. This allowed the railway authorities to cancel all trains to Jaffna, the Tamil capital, effectively cutting off the food supply.

On July 25, my sister and I were having breakfast in the saleya with my mother, when the doorbell rang. Rosalind went to answer it and returned with my grandmother’s thug, Chandralal. Rosalind’s pursed lips and large eyes told us something terrible had happened. My grandmother was having breakfast in her bedroom, and Chandralal went to talk with her. The ayah now told us what she had learnt: thirteen soldiers murdered by the Tamil Tigers had been buried the previous evening at the Kanaththa Cemetery in Colombo. A mob had gathered at the funeral and then fanned out through the neighbourhood, burning Tamil houses and killing Tamil people.

We were only a ten-minute car ride from the cemetery. Sunlight slanted in through the windows across our tablecloth, babblers chirped and squabbled among the hibiscus bushes, music from a radio next door drifted in. It was impossible to believe this news was true.

My grandmother emerged from her room, followed by Chandralal. She was gripping the yoke of her housecoat, a fleck of jam on her chin.

“So, you’ve heard?” she said to my mother, addressing her in a civil tone for the first time since we had moved into her house.

“Well, perhaps last night has seen the end of it,” my mother replied, also forgetting her usual curt tone with my grandmother. “Surely the government will act to stop it?”

My grandmother gestured for Chandralal to speak.

He cleared his throat. “I’ve heard rumours that certain members of government are behind the rioting. The funeral mob, it seems, was armed with electoral lists telling them which houses were Tamil.” I had been mechanically eating but now lay down my cutlery, the clang of my fork loud in the silence. “These members of government say they are sick of the Tigers and wanted to teach Tamils a lesson.” He winced as if apologizing for them.

“So, what shall we do?” my mother whispered.

“Well, we are registered as a Sinhalese house,” my grandmother replied. “But just to be on the safe side, Chandralal is sending two of his golayas to keep guard.”

“I must leave soon, nona,” Chandralal said. “You never know when curfew will be declared.”

A look passed between them. “Yes-yes, you must indeed go,” my grandmother cried as if she were delaying him from some pleasant event.

She followed Chandralal out to the verandah and they talked in low tones for a while. Once he had left, she returned with an odd glint of excitement in her eyes, which she tried to hide with a stern frown as she bustled towards her room.

“How can you trust that man, Amma,” my mother called out after her. “He’s just a common thug.”

My grandmother increased her pace. “
Chandralal
is loyal to me.”

“Yes, yes, that is all very well, but I don’t trust him.”

“Well, what choice do you have?” my grandmother shot back as she disappeared into her room.

And so for that week we stayed at home while the waves of violence crashed around us, then withdrew, only to surge forward again. We could not go out, and even avoided standing at the gate, fearing unfriendly neighbours or their servants might recall we were Tamil and inform the mobs. The only comfort we had was the presence of Chandralal’s golayas, who played cards and carom in the shade of the front garden, and who, despite their burly appearance, were friendly and deferential, calling my sister and me “baba,” as if they had been long-time servants of our household. When we had our lunch on the back verandah, they ate turned away from us in the kitchen on low stools, as if not wanting to give offence. I spent most of my time reading. Hours passed slowly, my fear so constantly present I was not even aware of it until rumour that a mob might be coming down our street would send a clang of terror through me.

One day, the Tamil houses on the roads around ours went up in flames. For a few hours in the afternoon, we could hear the roar and crackle of fire, the crashing of furniture being destroyed. Once, a woman screamed, a gargled sound so chilling it haunts me to this day. The air was rancid with smoke and we walked around with handkerchiefs pressed to our noses, coughing and gagging when it was at its worst. In the evening, bits of ash floated into my grandmother’s garden, settling on her flowers.

Our street escaped the violence, and it was only later that we found out we owed that to Chandralal. Not only had he posted two henchmen at our house, he had spoken to the local gang lord and reached a deal with him that left our street inviolate. We didn’t question why Chandralal had gone to such lengths to save us, or what deal he had made. Perhaps we didn’t want to know.

After the riots, like everyone else, we had no choice but to pick up our lives and continue with work, school and, in my case, examinations. But Sri Lanka and Colombo were not the same. There was a sizzle of fear in the air, and a car backfiring would cause pedestrians to turn quickly towards the sound, bodies tensed. Then there were the burnt Tamil shops on Galle Road, the blackened interiors like gaping maws. We never went, like others, to ogle the destroyed houses on neighbouring streets, but little messengers of the destruction would periodically arrive in our garden—birds feathering their nests with crisped book pages, squirrels carrying cupboard knobs and buttons to bury in our flower beds, or an occasional bone whose provenance we did not want to guess. We made sure to be home before dark; Colombo became a ghost city after sunset.

Many Tamil students in our school were destitute, and I avoided looking at these boys when I passed them in the corridor. Because I was only half Tamil, my mother had been able to choose what language stream she put me in, and she had chosen Sinhala, the language of Colombo and government. Now I was frightened that my classmates, who had often baited Tamil boys, would recall I was part Tamil too.

Those students unaffected by the riots were asked to bring in uniforms, exercise books, pens and pencils to aid Tamil students. Mili Jayasinghe took the lead in collecting these items, soliciting money from students to help teachers who had lost their homes, raising funds for the funeral of an A-level commerce master who was murdered with his family. Mili exhorted his classmates during the interval to donate clothes and canned goods, to offer up their allowances. The language streams normally kept to themselves, but now Mili visited Tamil classes and asked boys to come out for a game of cricket or rugger.

All this earnest effort lowered Mili’s reputation among the very boys who had worshipped him before. His charitable exertions were seen as unmanly and excessive. I watched his admirers withdrawing, as if his diminishing status
was contagious. But Mili seemed unaware of this withdrawal—either that, or he did not care.

It is odd now to think that Mili was the one who handed me my freedom.

One morning a few weeks after the riots ended, he cornered me in the corridor. “I say, Shivan, how is your family coping with all this? I was so happy to learn you weren’t affected.”

“I … I, we’re fine.” I glanced around, hoping no one was listening.

“Ah, I’m very glad to hear that,” Mili said with great enthusiasm, as if he had known my family well for a long time. “Are you all planning to emigrate, too?”

“Emigrate?”

“Yes, don’t you know? The Canadian and Australian embassies are offering to fast-track immigration for Tamils who want to leave Sri Lanka. You have to meet certain criteria, like fluency in English and things like that.” He sighed and pushed the hair back from his forehead. “What a brain drain. The country will lose so many of our doctors, lawyers and engineers, not to mention school teachers. We damn Sinhalese deserve this.”

The recent upheavals had shaken loose some desperate courage in me, for after school that afternoon I cycled to the Canadian High Commission on Gregory’s Road. There was a high wall around the building with rolls of barbed wire along the top. The massive takaran-covered gates were closed, but people were being let in through a smaller gate by the guard’s room. I lined up, too. The applicants ahead were being asked to hand over their identity cards in order to enter. I took mine out. When I got to the guard, he looked me over and asked what I wanted. “I … I’m here to pick up an immigration form.” He squinted skeptically, so I added, “Yes, my mother, Mrs. Rassiah, called ahead and spoke to a lady, a Mrs.… Peiris?”

“You mean Mrs. Perera,” he said with a grim little smile. I had been fingering my school tie all the while, and I noticed a change in the guard’s demeanour when he glanced at the colours of my premier school. “Here is my ID.” I held the card out to him in a lordly manner, hoping he would not observe my trembling hand.

After that I easily obtained the form, mentioning to the receptionist that my mother had called Mrs. Perera.

When I got home, I spread the form out on my bed and stood gazing at it. The familiar household sounds—Rosalind pounding roasted chilies in the mortar, the hiss of the gardener’s sheers as he trimmed the croton bushes outside my window, the grinding piano scales of our neighbour’s daughter—came to me as if from a distance. It seemed unbelievable that these few sheets of paper could be the beginning of a great change.

When my mother returned from work, I went to see her. She was unravelling her sari, part of it snaking along the floor. She looked up from unpinning the pleats and her eyes narrowed in surprise. I seldom came in to talk these days.

“Amma.” I held out the form.

My mother took it with a little frown, then her brow rippled in astonishment. “Why are you giving this to me, Shivan?”

“Why do you think?” I replied rudely, hands in pockets, trying to appear nonchalant.

My mother threw the form on the bed and finished unravelling her sari. She stepped out of its puddle around her feet, twitched the neckline of her blouse into place, then sat on the bed and picked up the form. Outside her window, I could hear the
hush-hush
of the gardener watering the flowers beds with a hose.

“It seems that Canada and Australia are offering expedited immigration for Tamils who want to get out and—”

“Yes, I am aware of it, Shivan.”

“You are?”

“Of course. Tamil people at work are applying.”

“Then why didn’t you think of us?” I cried.

She plucked at the chain around her neck, then shrugged. “I was thinking of changing my name back to Ariyasinghe, and changing yours and Renu’s as well.”

I was surprised by this, and troubled that my mother felt things were this bad.

“But immigration, Shivan. It is a large move.” She sighed deeply.

“I know,” I whispered. I came to sit by her. “But think of the life we could have there, Amma. Renu and I could go to a foreign university. Think,” I held her gaze, “of the freedom for me.”

Her eyes widened. Then she knelt on the floor and began to fold her sari, head bent. I was desperate to escape her misery but forced myself to sit there, fearing that if I left I would lose this precious chance at freedom.