by Sharon Bala
She was embarrassed for Gigovaz and exasperated with him whenever he passed her desk and muttered, conspiratorial: Don’t worry. I’ve got a plan.
Priya’s bar exam course began on Monday, but her future after that was still a question mark.
Uncle touched her forehead with the back of his hand. Shall I make you a milky tea?
I would love a milky tea.
He smoothed a hand over the crown of her head. Have a rest, Baba.
Priya reclined the chair back, her legs lifting up. If it wasn’t a Thursday, she’d be alone in her apartment right now, overturning a can of Chunky Noodle into a saucepan, the beginnings of this same headache throbbing at her temples.
She closed her eyes and listened to the squeaky hinge of the spice cabinet, drawers rolling on their casters, Uncle’s bare feet padding around the kitchen. Nothing had outwardly changed since their talk at Christmas, but she felt more protective toward Uncle now, as if their roles had been reversed and he was the child. It made her unsettled, the responsibility. Was this what it meant to grow up?
Your client, he called out after a while. How do they know he was in the LTTE?
The RCMP traced his identity card through Interpol, Priya said, joining him in the kitchen. We’re talking high-ranking captain here, not just a foot soldier. He must have known they’d find out. I don’t know how he played it so cool all these months. Now he claims he’s innocent but offers no proof.
Uncle assembled a spice bouquet, arranging cardamom pods, fennel seeds, and cinnamon bark on a square of cheesecloth. Is there nothing left to do? he asked.
We can challenge the decision in federal court, but it’s a Hail Mary. Even when people are innocent, fighting a removal order is a long shot. And anyway, our client’s uncooperative.
She was furious at Ranga and frustrated by his obstinacy, his unwillingness to say any more, his deliberate blindness to the consequences of his actions.
The real victims are the people still waiting to have their cases heard, she said, thinking of Mahindan. Now anything they say will sound suspect. And Blair’s making hay, riling up public opinion. This guy, all he’s done is jeopardize everyone else’s chances. It’s so selfish!
Uncle removed his glasses and rubbed two fingers over his eyes. Priya, you remember what we spoke about at Christmas…about the thugs who came to the house and how the government had…how all the Tamil places were burning…?
There was more to the story after all. Curiosity battled her desire to protect him, and she said: Uncle, you don’t have to tell me if it upsets you.
You have a right to know, he said. To understand.
But then he didn’t speak, and every tick of the black Timex on his thin, bony wrist was suddenly loud in the silence. Eventually, she prodded him along: You took a cargo ship north after the riots.
That first day in Jaffna, there were queues everywhere, Uncle said. Thousands of people had flooded the city, and there were no jobs. Rents went through the roof. One of Appa’s nieces had a small house where we slept on the floor. We went to temple every day because it was one guaranteed meal, and counted ourselves lucky to not be in a refugee camp.
He continued: Private cars were banned, then boats with outboard motors. Eventually, even fishing was illegal. We couldn’t go to the beach because there were cordons to stop the militants from getting supplies. Once, there was a forty-eight-hour curfew and we were trapped in the house, playing cards and waiting for the tanks to roll in. Soldiers banged the door in before we had a chance to open it; they turned the place upside down searching for weapons. My cousin’s small girls were terrified. Appa and I stood in front to shield them. All the young men were rounded up for questioning. I was lucky to be sent home the next day, but my cousin’s husband was interrogated for months. By the time he came back, he had lost his job. So now we were poorer, staying all day at home with nothing to do but drive each other crazy.
Uncle shook his head in frustration, then said: We thought there would be peace in Jaffna. At least there, our neighbours would not try to kill us. But when the Sinhalese had us all together, confined in one place, they attacked. Aerial bombing day and night, every morning bodies on the street. Sometimes, it felt we would spend the rest of our lives in a bunker.
Uncle bowed his head, palms flat on the laminate, folded lenses trapped under one hand. Priya waited, counting every breath.
Finally, without looking up, he continued: You know what a barrel bomb is? A wooden barrel packed with explosives and rubber and sawdust. Very cheap to make. Fellows pushed them out of transport planes with their feet, and from the ground you could see the thing twist and turn as it came down. It was like an earthquake when it fell. One barrel could knock out twenty houses. The worst was when the flaming rubber stuck to people’s skin. If I close my eyes now, I can still hear the screaming. It wasn’t human.
In high school, Uncle had helped Priya with her homework. They used to stand here just like this, on either side of the kitchen counter, while Ma puttered and fussed in the background, Priya with her eyes and fists squeezed shut and Uncle with the textbook open to the answer key, drilling her on irregular verbs and the Krebs cycle. The eleven factors that led to the Second World War. When her chemistry class learned the periodic table of elements, Uncle memorized them too. She had never bothered to wonder: What life had he led before this?
At that time, the army had control of Jaffna town, Uncle said. They were stationed at the fort and soldiers patrolled the streets. Uneducated boys, barely of age, were given uniforms and guns and allowed to swagger about like they owned the place. The Sinhalese had chased us out of the south because they said it was their land, and now their soldiers were occupying the north, our ancestral land. Setting fire to houses, businesses, beating people indiscriminately. No one could control them, or the Sinhalese didn’t care to. They were constantly shaking us down just for being young men. They were paranoid we had weapons. In a way, maybe their distrust made what happened possible.
Priya was rankled by the injustice. The Sinhalese sent soldiers to terrorize Tamils and then cried foul when their victims fought back!
One day, I came upon a girl at a bus halt. Two soldiers were circling her. Just imagine, Priya, with their uniforms and guns, saying dirty things in Sinhala that maybe she could not even understand. For three years, I had kept quiet, avoiding their eyes, going around a corner if I saw the soldiers coming. But this one day, I could not stay silent. They had marked this girl out because she was alone and weak. I went and shouted at them in Sinhala. Hey! Why not pick on someone your own size? Some silly thing from a film. The minute the soldiers turned, I knew it was a mistake. One held my arms behind my back while the other punched. I screamed to the girl to run, but after the first fist slammed into my gut, I lost my breath. My whole body was being pummelled, but I couldn’t feel the pain because all my focus was on trying just to gasp.
Uncle continued: By chance, some Tamil fellows arrived. A big group of them came out of a building or around a corner, I don’t know, and the soldiers ran away. I managed to name the street where we were staying before fainting. They carried me from door to door until they found the house. Amma was hysterical. I had five broken ribs, couldn’t open one eye for days. In time, my whole face would swell up. To this day, I am grateful to those fellows. I was in bed for more than a week and they visited every day. They were my age and most were Jaffna boys, raised in the north. Unlike me, they had never had jobs, had barely finished their schooling. Still, we got on like old chums. How many hours we spent discussing self-government and separation. When I think now, it seems like it was an all-consuming madness. But what else was there to do? At least there was hope in our plans.
They were LTTE? she asked.
At that time, there were different-different militants, he said. This group and that group. The boys, everyone called them. Out of all, the LTTE were the most powerful. Many people did not take them seriously. Amma called them low caste. She used to say: What
do these uneducated godayas know about solving the Tamil problem? There was a real sense of fatalism among the older generation. This whole what-to-do attitude, their willingness to accept powerlessness, it frustrated me. It felt like collusion. My parents’ generation, they had seen trouble brewing and put their trust in diplomacy and the political process, in Tamil politicians. But my friends and I, we could see how all that had failed.
Priya picked up the sports section spread across the counter and shuffled the pages back in order, then folded the newspaper in half, trying to keep her trembling hands occupied. The medal count screamed jubilant across the front page: OWN THE PODIUM!
Amma didn’t like my new friends, Uncle said. I thought she was being a city snob. What did caste or even schooling matter when we were all brothers in the same fight? For three years, I had had nothing to do but let my rage fester. Twice now, Sinhalese thugs had nearly murdered me. I thought, if I must die, let it mean something. Let there be some honour in it.
Priya’s first instinct was to leave the room. What was he saying? Surely he couldn’t mean…Mouth dry, she croaked: But Appamma and Appappa. They stopped you.
My parents had begun talking about Canada, Uncle said. They too had given up on diplomacy, but their solution was to leave. Your father had started the paperwork to bring us all over. Every day, Tamils were emigrating, but I was twenty-five, twenty-six. How to talk sense to a person that age? The LTTE had just overrun the fort and liberated Jaffna. My new friends and I were all high on victory. Eelam felt inevitable.
Uncle’s head was down, his eyes fixed on the counter. She saw the rise and fall of his chest and realized that she too was breathing hard. A thought crystallized like a boulder in her throat: My uncle was a Tiger.
You have to understand, Uncle said. We thought it would be a short-term struggle. One, two years maximum, and Sri Lanka would let us have our own country.
Uncle wore a shirt and tie to work and a sarong around the house. He opened all the windows when he cooked because he didn’t want the house to stink of fried fish. The careless words Priya had let loose minutes earlier returned to her. I don’t know how he played it so cool.
I joined in ’86, Uncle said. They gave me a rifle and a kuppie – a cyanide capsule, you understand? By then, it was full-scale war. There were training camps where we were taught how to use our weapons and handle land mines.
And then what? she asked, her voice very small. She went to the sink and filled the kettle with water, her hands still shaking. Why had she opened this Pandora’s box of old demons?
Then I just fought. Most of the time, we were running this way and that, around in the jungle, contracting malaria and dysentery. Priya, look at me.
She heard him turn as he said this, but she kept her back to him. And shooting people? she asked quietly. The Sinhalese?
Priya. He came to the stove, where she was fiddling with the knob, coaxing the gas to light, and, catching her wrist, forced her to face him. It was war. I had to kill the enemy. He held her gaze and she saw his irises, so dark the pupils were nearly imperceptible. Do you understand?
Priya thought of Charlie then, the ferocity in her eyes when she said she’d fight back with anything she had.
Yes, Priya said truthfully.
She felt his grip, firm and gentle, saw the high cheekbones, so like her brother’s, and the deep creases bracketing them, the grey wisps at his temples. When she imagined a young man in camouflage, thick, curly hair, a gun slung across his back, he looked nothing like her uncle.
Releasing her wrist, he turned away and, shoulders slumping, said, I hate burdening you with this.
You were right. I need to know, she said, terrified but resigned now to whatever he might say. Tell me the rest.
Uncle poured milk into a pan and warmed it to a near boil, skimming a spoon over the surface to tease off the thin layer of translucent skin. Priya took out the mugs, falling in with the ritual, relieved to have something to do, the certainty of action. They returned to the counter and stood on opposite sides.
In ’87, Uncle said, the government brought the Indians in to finish what they had started. For three years, their army occupied the north. So we fought the Indians. Idiotic, isn’t it? I thought I was doing the honourable thing, taking up weapons and fighting for my people. But there is no honour in having your head blasted open by a grenade, in lying in the bushes with a kuppie between your teeth and a rifle cocked on your shoulder, shooting the legs out from under a man who cannot even see you. This is what Amma was trying to tell me: being a guerrilla was not the answer. Diplomacy wasn’t the answer. The LTTE wasn’t the answer.
Then what’s the answer? she asked, almost of herself.
Nothing. There’s just no answer. Only answer is to leave. See, your parents knew this all along. You know what your father said when I called to announce, like a fool, that I was going to liberate our people? He said I was selfish.
Priya winced, and Uncle said, No. He was right. But instead of listening, how did I act? He brought a fist to his temple and banged out each word: Selfish! Irresponsible! Ungrateful! Did I think of my parents, of the grief I was giving them? Did I think of your father? So far away, with a family of his own, and now he had to worry about his donkey of a brother.
He was still knocking his head with his fist. Uncle, Priya said, and gently pulled his hand away, holding it down on the counter, under her own, feeling his knuckles, how cold they were. Okay, she said. It’s finished. It’s over.
Your grandparents could have left. Your father kept saying: Come now, while the door is open. But they refused to leave without me. The last words I said to my father were that he understood nothing. And the last thing he told me was that he loved me.
Uncle flattened his hand. He turned his head to the wall.
By the time I found out, they had been dead and gone a week. My cousin told your father they had met with an accident, but you know how our people are…she might have made up a story to be kind.
Priya could not read his indifference – was it practised or sincere? Perhaps time had healed the wound. Or the tragedies of those years were all of a piece, so awful you either let go or allowed them to drag you under.
The day I came to know about my parents, my unit was holed up in a hut on the outskirts of a village. We knew the Indians were nearby, but we didn’t know how close. I volunteered to be a scout. Myself and another fellow we called Banu. Everyone had code names.
Priya took her hand back. She did not ask what his code name had been.
I was mourning my parents, furious at the Sinhalese, the Indians, our two-faced president. Uncle’s fist hit the counter three times as he said: Selfish. Selfish. Selfish. It was easier to blame everyone else than be angry with myself. I was in a dangerous mood, shouting and cursing in English, about the motherfucking Indians who had no business on our land. Carrying on like a visaran as we went into the forest. Banu was begging me to keep my voice down. The jungle was dense in that area, and dark. The trees made canopies and blocked out the sun. The enemy could have been anywhere.
We had gone maybe forty-five minutes when Banu said he heard something. To this day, I don’t know how he could have known the enemy was there. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was just trying to make me shut up. Banu got down behind a bush and I climbed a wood apple tree. I went up so fast, the bark tore a hole in my trousers.
He rubbed his kneecap, as if remembering the chafing of the spiny trunk.
At first, I couldn’t see anything. You know Vilam Palam? he asked, using the tree’s Tamil name. The leaves are like ferns, difficult to see through. For a time, I thought it was a false alarm. There wasn’t a monkey in sight. By then, even the animals knew to hide. After a while, I saw a small movement behind a coconut tree, then the green helmets. There were a dozen of them, every last one armed to the teeth. The largest, best-trained army in the world against two boys in broken sandals. I signalled down to Banu and took out my gun, but my hands were shaking and I could
n’t get a clear shot. The Indians were moving from tree to tree, keeping their cover. I had the kuppie between my teeth, ready to bite.
Uncle rested his elbows on the counter and rubbed his hands over his head, fingertips pressing so hard the skin on his scalp creased. Straightening, he moved the things on the counter around – the folded newspaper, the spice jars, the mugs – thinking his own dark thoughts. It occurred to Priya that this was a story no one else had heard. What did it feel like to be crouched in a tree, waiting for violent death?
They must have spotted Banu. One soldier stepped out with his machine gun. Immediately, he gave a shout and fell down. I almost swallowed my kuppie in shock. From under the bush, Banu had shot the fellow in the legs. All the Indians came out at once and Banu jumped up with his rifle raised. This is what we had been trained to do, fire and break through an ambush. My rifle was still in my hands, but I was paralyzed. I could swallow the poison or aim and take fire. I kept telling myself to do something, to pick a fate.
Banu was shooting in an erratic way. I don’t think he was aiming at anyone in particular, or maybe he was just terrified like me and couldn’t shoot properly. At the end, he screamed for his Amma.
Uncle shielded his eyes with one hand. Priya was sweating. Her right knee quivered, threatening to give out.
After Banu was dead, they all stood around, kicking his body. A better man would have pulled the trigger, had vengeance for Banu, for my Amma and Appa.
What did you do? she asked.
He turned to her and for a confusing moment she saw her father’s face. I shut my eyes and waited until I heard them leave.
Priya was relieved. That nothing worse had happened. That the story was finally over. You were lucky, she said.
I was a coward. I returned my rifle and kuppie and never looked back.
The Tigers let you go – just like that?
At that time, it was different, he said. The fellows who came later, they were not so fortunate.
