Granta 125: After the War

by John Freeman

MESS

  Romesh Gunesekera

  * * *

  In November, I had my first military encounter in Jaffna. Not what you think. Not a skirmish. The war here, in Sri Lanka, was over. But you could say it was an encounter with the war within: guilt, which I am beginning to see riddles everything. I was asked to take Father Perera and his friend, Patrick, from England – a younger, balding acolyte – to a military base for a meeting with a big major. Maybe the officer had turned to Christ, in the wilderness, and was looking for the necessary sacrament, or else it was part of the reconciliation effort the bishop was going on about on the radio. At any rate, my mission was to find the camp and deliver the pastors in time for an army dinner. That was fine. I have no problem with our armed forces. They are all heroes now. We have nothing to fear.

  A small town about twenty miles from Jaffna was our turn-off. At the crossroads by the municipal market, where prawns and pumpkins are bartered and old ammunition shells bought for scrap, a monument commemorated a Sinhala king’s victory over a Tamil prince in the second century BC. It did not seem to point to much of a reconciliation route to me but I took the turn, as I had been told, and tried to pick up some speed. My plan was to do most of the drive before nightfall, so that there would be some light to guide me, but my passengers had been too slow getting out of the Hibiscus. I could hear them on the veranda discussing redemption versus education instead of brushing what remaining hair they had on their heads and putting on their evening cassocks, but what could I do?

  As we got out of the town, the dark enveloped us. I have heard that in some parts of the world the light of humanity has made a black night impossible – darkness has been dispelled by what Time magazine calls light pollution. We could do with some of that pollution here. Especially if humanity is what causes it. My headlights illuminated nothing. The stars scattered across the sky thinned out. Fortunately the road was straight. A whitish crumble fell off the edges but I couldn’t tell whether it turned into marshland or salt pans further out.

  ‘Father Perera, did they say how far before the next turn?’ The numbers of the milometer tumbled in the glow of the dashboard.

  ‘I was told about half an hour’s drive.’

  ‘But at what speed, Father? The army has to march, no? Or they go by tanks. Not Toyotas.’

  The acolyte, Mr Patrick said, ‘I have Google Maps on my phone.’ Our interior lit up as he switched on his cell.

  I slowed down, more out of instinct than practicality. There was no real alternative to carrying on as we were. I heard him tap the screen. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought he swore in the bluish glare. ‘No signal, sir?’

  ‘The map showed nothing. Just a blank space like a bloody desert and now it’s gone off.’

  ‘War zone, sir. Army business, no?’

  We carried on mapless in no man’s empty sand. After about another fifteen minutes, my headlights picked out a jeep stuck by a bumpy white culvert. I made out one soldier leaning against the back, smoking, while another irrigated the desert. I stopped and rolled down the window.

  ‘Is the Samanala Camp on this road?’ I asked in Sinhala.

  The smoker came over and peered into the van. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  I said I was bringing a priest for an important meeting with a big major. ‘He is waiting for us,’ I said.

  The soldier puffed on his cigarette. I thought Father Perera might offer him some guidance on protocol, and that he might take it out of his mouth for a moment, but there was only the tinkle of piss in the dark. Then the soldier barked something at his companion. The other soldier did up his flaps and pulled out his phone. He had a signal, but then of course he would. How else could an army function? We waited for the talk to subside outside. Then the first one smacked the windscreen and said, ‘OK, uncle. Can go.’

  The phone boy waved a tainted hand as if he were tossing a grenade. ‘Go until you come to a fork in the road. Take the left. One K down you’ll come to the camp.’

  ‘How do we recognize it?’

  ‘You will know. There is nothing else.’

  About ten minutes later, we passed a fence made of barbed wire and brown twigs. Then another soldier stepped out onto the road with a flashlight. He pointed it at a gate. I turned the wheel. It was good to be guided. I felt deep down I must be a believer like Father Perera. I drove slowly. Long low buildings disappeared in black. I felt we should be on camels, or at least donkeys. Something more biblical than my van.

  ‘Father, where now?’

  ‘Keep going. There will be a sign.’

  A man of faith has much to be thankful for in a world as dark as ours.

  Small red border plants flared in neat lines. Clumps of starry flowers blinked. This was a military village with civic pride. An oasis of luxury, rather than a lean fighting unit out of Spartacus or The Guns of Navarone. The road curved. We came to a lighted building with three magisterial mango trees guarding it. The building had its own inner fence made of dried palmyra fans, more decorative and intricate than anything else around. There was yet another soldier waiting for us. He was the sign. He came forward and opened the side door for my passengers. Father Perera got down first. The soldier clicked his heels. He didn’t say anything. Mr Patrick looked ghostly in the lamplight. Father Perera turned to me. ‘Vasantha, you must join us.’ He sounded like Jesus must have done among the Pharisees, and I began to wonder whether this was how conversion worked. Tonight, I thought, I could be an officer and an apostle. It felt good. I suppose that’s the thing about it.

  I asked the soldier whether I could park the van around the side. He shrugged. In the military I thought one had to be more decisive and heroic, but perhaps that was further up the chain of command and only in times of real conflict. Peace has made us all dozy, I guess. Even the crickets were muffled.

  The room was enormous and had electricity. You could do a wedding party in there, no problem. Red cloths had been laid with crisp folds at the corners. We were ushered to the bar, nicely fitted out with cushioned rattan furniture. The TV in the corner was droning Rupavahini news.

  Father Perera took the chair in the centre of the row lined up against the wall; Mr Patrick sat next to him. I went for the smallest corner seat. Outside my van, I never quite know my place. Only that it is very easy to make a fool of oneself in unknown territory.

  No one said a word. On TV, Chinese VIPs were shaking hands. Why do people shake hands? Why do the Chinese do it? Did Chairman Mao ever do it? Do any of them wash their hands properly? From what I have seen in comfort stops up and down the country, it is a big surprise who does and who does not wash their hands. Not all foreigners do. Pontius Pilate did, but the Unilever man from Birkenhead the other day definitely didn’t, despite the discount he must get on all soap products. Ordinary soldiers in a desert obviously can’t. Or if they are in the middle of a battle or something. That’s why hygiene-wise it is always better to keep one’s hands to oneself. But perhaps in China they are commanded to wash their hands regularly. Cleanliness is next to godliness, my father used to say. As a Party wallah, he would have known.

  A few minutes later, a small man in white livery limped in carrying a tray with glasses of orange juice and beer and something colourless and sparkling. Father Perera picked a juice, Mr Patrick a beer. I asked what the other drink was and the man serving cringed as if he thought I might scold him. His skin was flaky. ‘Lemonade,’ he whispered.

  But one needs to know. I have responsibilities. I can’t be drinking army gin and tonic and driving back blind as a baboon, whatever the state of the nation.

  ‘So.’ Father Perera raised his glass. ‘This is very impressive, isn’t it?’

  ‘I expected a camp to look more temporary,’ Mr Patrick replied. ‘Not so solidly built. This is all very settled.’

  ‘Concrete beneath the palmyra.’ Father Perera reached behind his seat and slyly prodded the pale brown leafy wall.

  Mr Patrick took out his phone and scrolled through somethi
ng on the screen. ‘A clear shot is all we need,’ he muttered. He seemed a long way from ordination.

  Then a door opened and a powerfully built man slipped in. His face was proud and full, his smile glittery. ‘Good evening, gentlemen. Welcome.’

  We all rose to our feet. ‘Good evening, Major.’ Father Perera’s voice shifted up as though he were acting a part.

  ‘Sit down, please, sit down. You have a drink? Good.’ The major strode over to the solitary presiding chair under the TV. ‘Please sit. Dinner will be served at eight. Is that all right?’

  ‘Very kind of you, Major.’ Father Perera sank down first. I followed, falling in line. Mr Patrick stared at our host and fumbled with his chair.

  The major’s hands, I noticed, were immaculate. Another officer appeared – younger, taller, slower – whose face was round and beautiful, like a woman’s, and whose petal-like lips were large and sensitive. ‘Captain Vijay, come and sit down.’ The major then looked at me.

  ‘Vasantha,’ I managed to say. ‘My van.’ I looked at Father Perera for corroboration but he was too busy exchanging glances with Mr Patrick.

  ‘Good. Welcome, Vasantha. Welcome to the army.’ The major turned back to the other two. ‘So, you are touring and wanted to see our operation.’

  Father Perera took a quick sip of juice. ‘Yes, Patrick is in training in the UK, church, you know, not army. But he was keen to see a real camp and our mutual friend, Peeky, yours and mine I mean, said you were the man to arrange it.’

  ‘Old Peeky? You went to London with that fellow for one of his Christian conventions, I hear.’

  ‘Actually a conference on conflict resolution in Berne. Switzerland. He is in tourism, no?’

  ‘Funny bloody business.’ The major laughed. ‘We were in college together, you know. Then he took the high road and I took the low. Look what happened.’

  ‘You can never tell,’ Father Perera assured him.

  ‘I know. The ways of God and all that.’ The major put his hands together in a small prayer. ‘You should have come for lunch, Father. We could have shown you everything then. But in the dark, what can you see?’

  ‘Yes, quite.’ Mr Patrick nodded. His shiny face reddened. He lowered his head as if he had shaved his horns. ‘We were hoping to visit one of the IDP camps.’

  ‘That, I am afraid, is not my department. This is only a military camp.’ The major cracked his knuckles deliberately, one after another, and made a small fort with his fingers. He was never a man afraid.

  No one had mentioned IDP camps while we were in the van. Those pockets in the jungle where hundreds of thousands of Tamil refugees – Internally Displaced Persons – were kept at the end of the war until the government worked out what to do. Or so they say. I had a suspicion that Mr Patrick just wanted to unsettle the major. Perhaps that is how one proselytizes. Internally displace first, then reprieve. The pastor must find a way to go where angels fear to tread, no?

  ‘We have many parishioners back in England who are very concerned about Sri Lanka,’ Mr Patrick added, a little nervously. ‘I want to tell them what it is really like. We hear such confusing things.’

  ‘That’s media, no? It is important for you to see us as we are. After the war, we are now pure administrators, one and all.’ The major smiled charmingly and turned to Father Perera. ‘Tell me, Padre, you must have been to Jaffna before?’

  ‘I have indeed, but not for a few years.’

  ‘It is certainly time for you to return then. Your flock must be anxious.’

  Father Perera bowed. ‘Some, but we do have brothers who have been in the area all along.’

  ‘Oh, I know, I know. I wish your brothers had taken your flock out of the war zone and left us a clear field to operate in.’ The major demolished the small structure he had made and rubbed his hands together as though he were oiling the joints of a machine. ‘So, what do you think? You like our little mess?’

  I was taken aback for a moment, until I realized what he meant. Father Perera knew straight away. ‘Very nicely appointed.’

  ‘We’ve been here for more than ten years. One must do one’s best.’

  ‘That is a long time for a camp,’ Mr Patrick butted in.

  ‘For us it is home, Patrick. I myself planted the orchard on my first posting.’ He laughed like a man used to laughing alone. ‘Between battles, you know.’

  ‘The mango trees outside?’ Father Perera asked.

  ‘Not those. No, those were here. Pukka trees. You know, the Jaffna mango cannot be beaten. And we have the fruit straight from the tree. When it is ripe, it just falls into our hands. You cannot get a decent mango in Colombo these days, you know. They are all forced to ripen. All sorts of cheap market tricks. None of that here. The real thing, you get here. We will have some tonight. You will see.’ He spread out his arms. ‘I love this country.’

  ‘Sounds like you will not be shifting camp for a while then, after so many years here. You will remain in occupation?’ Mr Patrick’s face showed thin, craven lines of daily strain more easily than smiles. His was not the face of a regular believer; there was much too much zeal in it.

  ‘Let us not go there, my friend. Politics is not my expertise. I do not try to predict the future. I am a soldier. I do what I am commanded to do.’ He flexed his arm and glanced at the captain. ‘My job is to keep my men fit, and to keep the peace.’

  ‘I understand. My grandfather was in the army.’ Mr Patrick nodded.

  ‘British Army?’ The captain asked in surprise, speaking to us for the first time.

  ‘He was at Dunkirk. He stayed on the beach until all his men were rescued. They all were.’ Mr Patrick faltered. ‘Along with 350,000 other men. All rescued from the beach.’

  ‘350,000?’ The major’s dark fingers closed in a tight prayer. ‘That’s a helluva big operation.’

  ‘Boats came from all over Britain. Hundreds of them, from dinghies to battleships. People still talk about it, seventy years on.’ The words rushed, crowding out of Mr Patrick’s shallow breath. ‘It was a big thing. It will never be forgotten.’

  A shield seemed to slide over the major’s face. ‘I know,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘We had 350,000 to contend with too, in the humanitarian operation after the final fight.’

  It was a big job, I know, ending the war, shepherding people. We saw the magnitude of the problem on TV. Mr Patrick in England wouldn’t know anything about it, but Father Perera would have seen the pictures of people streaming across the lagoon. The victory march. The housing problem. At first, it was difficult to believe. I thought it was all propaganda. My father used to say, even in the old days, the media is an instrument of the capitalist state. He didn’t always know what he was talking about, and was blind to the faults of a socialist state, but as a result he has given me a crippling dose of scepticism. So now I find it hard to believe anything and end up knowing nothing. Never mind the media, I don’t even know whether we are living in a capitalist state or a socialist one, a non-aligned one or a crooked one. And when I try to compensate against my prejudices, I end up believing everything and nothing, as if we are living in a country of no consequences.

  I am probably exactly the sort of person Father Perera would love to have in his sights. Just ripe and ready to fall, like the major’s mangoes, into someone’s comforting hands. Clean hands.

  At eight o’clock exactly the man in white livery struck a small brass gong.

  ‘Come, let us eat.’ The major cuffed his subordinate playfully. ‘Captain, lead our guests.’

  Captain Vijay stood up. ‘Please.’ He made a soft gentle gesture with his hand.

  Along one side of the room there was a long table with half a dozen clay pots of curries: chicken, brinjal, okra, prawn.

  ‘Where is the string hopper pilau, then?’ The major asked the attendant.

  ‘End dish, sir.’

  ‘You do very well here, Major,’ Mr Patrick said, inspecting the table.

  ‘You have to understand what your me
n need. They need to feel on top. You see, if morale goes, everything goes. Napoleon’s secret. That is why he had vinaigrette and champagne, no?’ The major’s laugh had turned sharper. ‘My CO’s big joke.’

  ‘Champagne?’ Mr Patrick looked around.

  ‘Actually our chief only likes Black Label, but we have first-class supplies. And now, of course, it all comes by road. Before the A9 opened, we had to airfreight everything: chicken, seer fish, tea, everything. Helluva business that was.’

  ‘Between the fighting?’

  ‘That also was a helluva business. People don’t like to admit it, but the enemy was no pushover. Very efficiently trained, very passionate and very disciplined. The thing is they were doing it for a very clear purpose. More difficult for our fellows. You can instil discipline and even motivation in a professional army, but that emotional element is a very difficult to fire up. You have to go on the offensive until you smell victory. Then you have the aphrodisiac and can go full tilt.’

  ‘I thought they, the other side I mean, were forced to fight.’ Mr Patrick took a plate from the stack at the end. ‘Families had to give up a child to the Tigers, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes, definitely. But even so, the brainwashing they do very efficiently. We cannot do that, you see. We have to go by the rules.’ He pointed at the prawn curry. ‘That is a Jaffna special. Very hot. But you must try it. Baptism of fire. That is the way, no, Father?’

  ‘For the soldier, yes, Major. But I prefer to use water myself.’

  ‘But this is Jaffna, Father. Water is in short supply. What we have is firepower.’ He laughed again in small sharp bursts and then cocked an eye at me. ‘Come, Vasantha. Eat, eat.’

  I helped myself. This was a banquet as good as you’d get at a five-star hotel. We carried our heaped plates dutifully to the table that had been set for us. The two officers took the two ends. I sat next to Father Perera. He shook open a napkin like a white flag. I was not sure what was going on but I guess that’s where religion comes in. If you know the rituals, you have no problem.